Posts from several PTI-affiliated accounts on social media platform X since Sunday shared a video of veteran Pakistani singer Attaullah Esakhelvi urging people to come out and participate in a PTI protest ahead of the party’s November 24 power show. However, the video is old from March 2022.

On Nov 13, PTI founder Imran Khan issued a “final call” for nationwide protests on Nov 24 (Sunday), denouncing what he described as the stolen mandate, the unjust arrests of people and the passage of the 26th Amendment, which he said strengthened a “dictatorial regime”.

Since Imran’s arrest in August 2023 on several counts, his party has been holding protests across the country for his release and against the alleged rigging of the Feb 8, 2024 elections.

On Nov 17, digital media platform Naya Pakistan, which describes itself as a political channel according to its X bio, posted a video of Esakhelvi with the following caption, “Get out for the sake of Pakistan. Go forth for the sake of your Khan.”

In the video, Esakhelvi can be heard saying, “Get out for the sake of Pakistan. Go forth for the sake of your Khan. If we waste this chance, our future generations will never forgive us. May God protect all of you and this soil.”

The video gained over 185,000 views and was reshared 13,000 times.

PTI MNA Jamshaid Ahmad Dasti also shared the same video with the same caption on X. His post gained over 34,000 views and was reshared 2,100 times.

The same video with the same caption was widely shared by PTI supporters as can be seen here, here and here.

Some official PTI accounts also shared the video and caption as can be seen here and here.

Meanwhile, a different version of the video was also being shared by those critical of the PTI. A user, who appeared to be anti-PTI based on his past posts, shared a video on X on Nov 18 of the singer while calling on people to listen carefully to it.

In the video, Esakhelvi could be heard saying: “Step out for Qasim and Suleman. Step out for Tyrian. We are not shameless enough to send our children to die on the streets while Imran’s Jewish children live lavishly in Britain. Shame on you, Imran Khan. Stop the politics of corpses. Long live Pakistan!”

The post gained 25,600 views.

It was also shared by musician Jawad Ahmed, who is also the chairman of the Barabri Pakistani Party, with 64,100 views.

A fact-check was initiated to verify the claim due to its virality, the public’s keen interest in Imran’s call for protest and to resolve the discrepancy of two versions of the same video with different messages from the singer.

Conducting a reverse image search of screenshots from the video yielded results from 2022 as it redirected to Esakhelvi’s Instagram account.

The singer had posted the video on his Instagram account on March 26, 2022. The video’s transcript is presented below:

“Attaullah Esakhelvi is present with one request. Let’s go for Islamabad on March 27. Get out for the sake of Pakistan. Go forth for the sake of your Khan. If we waste this chance, our future generations will never forgive us. May God protect all of you and this soil.”

Esakhelvi was urging people to participate in the PTI’s March 27 rally at Islamabad’s Parade Ground, where Imran first alleged that a “foreign-funded conspiracy” was being hatched against his government ahead of the start of no-confidence proceedings against him.

Compared to the original video, it could be seen in the video being shared by PTI-affiliated accounts that the sentence mentioning March 27 was cut out.

Further investigation also yielded a June 20, 2023 news article by The Pakistan Daily titled: “I made anthems for Imran Khan, but now I’m ashamed,” says Attaullah Esakhelvi.

As per the report, Esakhelvi said that he supported the PTI and made anthems for it in the past but distanced himself from the party and condemned it after the nationwide riots of May 9, 2023.

He could not have therefore issued a video urging people to participate in the Nov 24 power show since he has since not publicly associated himself again with the PTI.

On the other hand, the version in which Esakhelvi criticised Imran was dubbed over and manipulated as the audio did not match his lip-syncing such as from the two to four-second mark where the audio continues despite no lip movement from the singer.

Therefore, the fact-check determined that the claim that Esakhelvi released a video message urging people to participate in the PTI’s Nov 24 rally is misleading since the video is an old one from March 2022 and featured him calling on people to participate in a March 27, 2022 rally.

The original video mentioned the March 27 date and spreading the video currently while cutting this date out could misguide people into thinking the singer supports the party when he has long distanced himself from it.

Meanwhile, another version of the video doing the rounds criticising Imran and the PTI is fake and manipulated since it is dubbed over with different audio than the original.

This fact check was originally published by iVerify Pakistan — a project of CEJ and UNDP.