Online rumors are spreading about a snapshot of a BBC Urdu broadcast that purports to show that Ali Amin Gandapur, the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and a prominent figure in the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has escaped to Afghanistan while wearing a burqa.
This purported flight is believed to have taken place in order to evade a state crackdown on the PTI leadership after a political gathering on September 8 in Islamabad.
The assertion is unfounded.
Declare
On September 10, a person going by the handle “Dr Syeda Sadaf” posted a screenshot on X (previously Twitter) that appeared to be from BBC Urdu. “According to BBC Urdu, Ali Amin [Gandapur] has fled to Afghanistan wearing a burqa,” stated the caption that went with the image.The article further stated that family members of a patient at the Rehman Medical Institute in Peshawar helped Gandapur escape.
The post has received about 82 likes and over 2,000 views thus far.
Check your facts: PTIs Ali Amin Gandapur did not travel in a burqa to Afghanistan, as reported by BBC Urdu.
Similar assertions were made on Facebook and Threads.
Reality
The chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa crossed into Afghanistan on the night of September 9; this was not reported by BBC Urdu.
The BBC Urdu news editor, Zeeshan Haider, sent a message to Fact Check saying, “We did not report anything like this.”
To demand the release, the PTI of former prime minister Imran Khan staged a protest on the outskirts of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, on September 8.
