PM Kakar did not post a condolence message on the alleged death of Dawood Ibrahim

The iVerify Pakistan team has checked this content and has established that it is false since no such post exists on caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar’s X timeline and it was originally shared by a parody account.

To arrive at this verdict, the IVerify Pakistan team corroborated the circulated image with the prime minister’s X account and also ran it through image manipulation software.

HOW IT STARTED

On December 18, 2023, Indian news outlets and social media users shared the alleged development that terror suspect Dawood Ibrahim had died after being poisoned and undergoing treatment in a Karachi hospital.

The alleged news was shared by The Times of India, India Today and LiveMint.

Amid all this, some Indian social media users were sharing an image of a tweet from caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar which said: “The messiah of humanity, dear to every Pakistani heart, our beloved his excellency Dawood Ibrahim passed away due to poisoned by unknown. He breathed his last in a hospital in Karachi.”

One Indian user, a self-described supporter of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party, said that in a “major development”, Pakistan’s prime minister had issued a “bold statement regarding Dawood Ibrahim’s demise due to poisoning by unknown assailants”.

The post was viewed close to 3,000 times.

Another Indian user said that PM Kakar’s statement describing Ibrahim as a “messiah of humanity” raised “serious concerns about the nation’s stance on terrorism”.

A post by another Indian user was viewed over 400,000 times.

METHODOLOGY

Deeming the image worthy of an investigation, the iVerify Pakistan team analysed the post further and cross-checked it with the prime minister’s official account.

Firstly, the date and time on the circulated post did not show any corresponding post on PM Kakar’s official X account.

Looking at the prime minister’s personal profile, the only post he made on Dec 18 was on the 75th anniversary of the establishment of Pakistan’s diplomatic relations with Norway.

Upon further examination, the team found that the social media handle in the image was spelt as “@anwaar_kakkar” while it is written as “@anwaar_kakar” on the prime minister’s official X account.

The image was subsequently run through image manipulation detection software such as FotoForensics and InVid which demonstrated tampering with the image.

Tracing the circulated post to its origin, the team found that it was shared on Dec 18 at 12:04 am by an Indian user Dr Rizwan Ahmed on X, calling the image an “official confirmation”.

The post was viewed over one million times and shared 2,500 times.

However, the account description for the user says it is a parody account focusing on humour as well.

Furthermore, the user said in a reply to the same post: “Do not fact-check this. It is fake and edited, I confirm.”

The user had also shared a purported post of former premier and PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif with a similar message for Ibrahim.

Parsing through his X timeline, the only post Sharif made on Dec 18 was on congratulating Qatar on its national day.

WHO IS DAWOOD IBRAHIM

Dawood Ibrahim is part of the United Nation’s ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions List.

He was included in the list on November 3, 2003, for “participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf or in support of”, “supplying, selling or transferring arms and related materiel to” or “otherwise supporting acts or activities of” Usama bin Laden, Al-Qaida (QDe.004) and the Taliban.

The UN says Ibrahim has “used his position as one of the most prominent criminals of the Indian underworld for most of the past two decades to support Al-Qaida (QDe.004) and related groups. In particular, his criminal syndicate has been involved in large-scale shipments of narcotics, and has shared its smuggling routes from South Asia, the Middle East and Africa with Usama bin Laden (deceased) and his terrorist network”.

It adds that he is also wanted in India in connection with the March 12, 1993, Bombay Exchange bombings, which killed over 250 people and injured over one thousand more.

The UN further said his criminal band known as “D” company and other associates “continue to engage in criminal activity in India and Nepal. This includes conspiracy to kill political leaders and counterfeiting currencies.”

India accuses Pakistan of harbouring the terror suspect and has demanded that he handed over, as per statements from the former’s External Affairs Ministry.

Meanwhile, Pakistan denies the Indian allegations. “Our consistent position on Dawood Ibrahim has been that he is not in Pakistan,” then-Foreign Office spokesman Qazi Khalilullah had said in August 2015.

CONCLUSION

The iVerify team has determined that the X post of PM Kakar being spread is manipulated and is false since no such post exists on his X timeline, it is flagged by software detecting image tampering and it was originally shared by a parody account.