On February 9, 2024, British news outlet The Independent reported that a curfew was imposed in Islamabad. Instead, Section 144 was imposed in the capital.
Curfew in Islamabad on Feb 9
The iVerify Pakistan team has checked this content and has established that it is misleading.
To arrive at this verdict, the iVerify Pakistan team investigated the claim made by The Independent by analysing its blog post and checking with the Islamabad police.
On February 9, 2024, British news outlet The Independent published a blog on its live updates for Pakistan’s general elections titled: “Curfew imposed in Islamabad.”
The organisation shared the same claim on social media platform X with the post gaining over 21,000 views.
The alleged development was shared by another user, who appeared to be a PTI supporter based on his past posts, on X and accumulated over 60,000 views.
Other users shared the post of the British outlet’s headline here, here and by many others, including Ryan Grim, the DC bureau chief at The Intercept, with his post gaining over 94,000 views.
Meanwhile, other users observed exhibited confusion and uncertainty over the news and whether or not it was true.
The iVerify Pakistan team sought to determine the veracity of the claim due to its high virality, particularly given its connection to the election results which were already controversial due to their delayed release.
The team first analysed the blog post for the news development. The text is reproduced below:
“Islamabad police say they are enforcing Section 144 orders banning public gatherings in the Pakistan capital as election results keep trickling in.
The police wrote on X: ‘In case of any illegal action, action will be taken. Respect for the law is mandatory for everyone. Legal action will be taken in case of any disturbance.’
When in force, a Section 144 order prohibits gatherings of four or more people. This section of the Criminal Procedure Code of Pakistan also empowers the district government to issue orders and/or ban any activity for a specific time in any region.
Police say the move is aimed at maintaining law and order once the results are out.”
To verify the reported news, the iVerify team checked the official X account of the Islamabad police and found a post from Feb 9 at 1:25pm.
The post said, “Section 144 is enforced in Islamabad. In case of any illegal activity, action will be taken. Respect for the law is mandatory for everyone, and legal action will be taken in case of any disturbance.”
The post expressed gratitude from the police to citizens for their cooperation in conducting peaceful elections.
However, notably, both the blog post and the Islamabad police’s X post did not mention the imposition of a curfew.
The team conducted searches using the keywords “curfew” and “Islamabad” but did not find any other news report on the matter.
To better understand the term “curfew”, the team consulted Lawyer Usama Khawar. According to him, it is “incorrect to say that it is a curfew”, referring to the Section 144 imposition.
Elaborating, he said: “Section 144 prohibits people from gatherings. However, it doesn’t bar gathering altogether. A curfew, on the other hand, forces people to stay indoors for a specific period of time. In such a case when authorities impose a curfew for a certain period of time, the element of time remains crucial.”
He added that prior approval was needed from the local police to venture out during a curfew, unlike during the imposition of Section 144.
As per Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, curfew means: “A law that says that people must not go outside after a particular time at night until the morning; the time after which nobody must go outside.”
Meanwhile, Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) empowers the district administration to issue orders in the public interest that may place a ban on an activity for a specific period of time.
It is commonly used by local administrations to ban public gatherings, particularly political gatherings, due to threats to the law and order situation. However, there are other applications of the section as well such as banning going to the beach or banning open carrying of armed weapons.
The general elections were held in Pakistan on Feb 8 with polling coming to a close at 5pm.
However, the results were not fully released even by the next day on Feb 9 and continued to come out at a snail’s pace, leading to allegations of rigging.
PTI Central Information Secretary Raoof Hasan had said on the matter: “PTI candidates were clearly winning with a huge margin in several constituencies, including Islamabad at night, but ironically, their clear victory was converted into defeat in the morning because political engineering was going on behind the scenes.”
PTI supporters seemed to be upset over the results in Islamabad as they were anticipating victory in all three National Assembly seats.
Amid the complaints of rigging, the PML-N made a clean sweep after 16 years by grabbing all the three seats of the National Assembly in the federal capital.
The iVerify Pakistan team has determined that the claimed development from The Independent report is misleading.
Section 144 and not a curfew was imposed in Islamabad on Feb 9 and both the blog post and the X post of the capital police confirm this since they do not make any mention of a curfew.
February 9, 2024 X post by Islamabad police on Section 144 imposition:
https://twitter.com/ICT_Police/status/1755870600080306303
