Imran’s picture casting his vote is not from general elections 2024 but from Oct 2018 by-polls

The iVerify Pakistan team has checked this content and has established that it is false.

To arrive at this verdict, the iVerify Pakistan team investigated the picture and traced it back to the October 2018 by-elections.

HOW IT STARTED

On February 8, 2024, a picture of PTI founder Imran Khan casting a vote from Adiala Jail for the general elections 2024 was shared by a user, who appeared to be a PTI supporter based on his past posts, on social media platform X with the caption: “A picture of Imran Khan casting a vote from Adiala Jail. Have you cast your vote?”

The same picture was shared on social media platform Instagram by a user with the caption: “Imran Khan and Sheikh Rasheed cast their votes in Adiala Jail, while Bushra Bibi, Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Chaudhry Pervez Elahi were unable to cast their votes.”

A similar picture was shared on Tiktok with the text: “Get out for Pakistan’s sake.”

The iVerify Pakistan team also found that the same picture with the same caption was shared on different WhatsApp groups as well.

METHODOLOGY

The iVerify Pakistan team sought to determine the veracity of the claim due to the public’s keen interest in the former prime minister who is presently incarcerated in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail.

Furthermore, no picture of the PTI founder has been officially released to the media since he was arrested in August 2023 after a conviction in a Toshakhana case.

Despite the claim’s low virality, it merits fact-checking due to the public’s keen interest in Imran as a political leader.

To investigate the circulated picture, iVerify Pakistan reverse-searched the picture and traced it back to the October 2018 by-elections for Islamabad’s NA-53 constituency.

The picture was posted on Imran’s official Facebook account on Oct 14, 2018, with the caption, “Prime Minister Imran Khan cast his vote in NA-53 constituency earlier today.”

The iVerify team also found a news story of Arab News, Saudi Arabia’s leading English Newspaper, from Oct 14, 2018, in which the same picture was used.

The headline of the story was: “By-polls 2018: PTI, PML-N lock horns to bag maximum seats”.

Further investigation yielded a clip from 24 News HD dated Oct 14, 2018, on YouTube with the title, “Imran Khan casts vote: By-Elections 2018” in which the same circulated picture of Imran casting the vote was used.

Most importantly, a Dawn print story from February 8, 2024, reported that Imran cast his vote from Adiala Jail through a postal ballot on Wednesday.

IMRAN KHAN’S INCARCERATION

On August 5, 2023, the PTI founder was sentenced to three years of imprisonment by an Islamabad trial court in a case related to state gifts.

The case, filed by the Election Commission of Pakistan, had accused the PTI leader of not mentioning the details of state gifts in his tax declarations. The Islamabad High Court set aside the sentence on Aug 29 and ordered his release.

However, he was not freed as he was undergoing trial in the cipher and other cases. The PTI chief currently remains incarcerated in Adiala Jail and has since been convicted and sentence to lengthy prison terms in other cases as well.

CONCLUSION

The iVerify Pakistan team has determined that the claim regarding Imran’s picture as being a current one of him casting his vote for general elections 2024 in Adiala Jail is false.

The picture is not from Adiala Jail but from Islamabad’s October 2018 by-elections. Furthermore, Imran has not even voted via traditional means for the general elections 2024 but through postal ballot.