The Ministry of Home Affairs has notified the rules for enforcing the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, passed by Parliament in December 2019. As a result of this development, there is widespread circulation of a screenshot purportedly showing a tweet by Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, denouncing the implementation of the CAA and pledging to introduce a similar law in Pakistan modelled after India’s. This article aims to fact-check the authenticity of the tweet.
The archived version of a similar post can be found here
Claim: Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, tweeted announcing their own CAA, extending a welcome to Indian Muslims.
Fact: Shehbaz Sharif did not tweet about the implementation of their own CAA or extend a welcome to Indian Muslims. An analysis conducted using a Twitter analytics tool confirmed this. The viral screenshot has been digitally manipulated. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Despite the viral screenshot closely resembling Shehbaz Sharif’s official Twitter account, it is a digitally manipulated image, and Sharif has not posted any such tweet extending a welcome to Indian Muslims. A search on Shehbaz Sharif’s Twitter account did not reveal any tweet matching the described content on 11 March 2024. The latest tweet from this account was made on 10 March 2024.
Moreover, an analysis conducted using Social Blade, a Twitter analytics tool, confirmed that Shehbaz Sharif did not post any tweets on 11 March 2024. According to the analytics, he made eight tweets on 09 March 2024, four on 10 March 2024, and none on 11 March 2024.
If it’s assumed that he deleted the tweet in question, the total number of tweets made through his account each day could vary. However, the total remains consistent without any discrepancies, indicating that he did not tweet on 11 March 2024.
Moreover, if the Prime Minister of Pakistan had indeed tweeted in response to India notifying rules for implementing the CAA, it would have been reported by the entire media. However, no such reports were found, further confirming that the viral screenshot is digitally manipulated.
To sum it up, no, Shehbaz Sharif did not tweet extending a welcome to Indian Muslims, the viral screenshot is fake.
