After declaring the 2024 General Election results, several videos of party workers from the I.N.D.I.A bloc raising green flags during victory celebrations has been widely shared on social media. These posts claim that the flags being raised were the national flags of Pakistan. Let’s verify the accuracy of these claims.
A viral video (here, here, and here) on social media allegedly shows a rally conducted in front of the Shiv Sena Bhavan, Nashik. It is being claimed that the green colour flags seen in this video are Pakistan’s national flags. We fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: Video shows a rally in front of the Shiv Sena Bhavan, Nashik, where Pakistani flags were hoisted recently.
Fact: The green flags seen in this video are not Pakistani flags; they are Islamic flags. Both these flags are not identical in nature. The Pakistani flag contains a white band on it, while this flag does not contain that. Also, the Islamic flag has numerous small stars, a feature absent in the Pakistani flag. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
Although we could not verify more details about the rally in the viral video, we learned that the location of the viral video matches the photos of Shiv Sena Bhavan available on Google Photos (here and here).
Also, a few social media users (archive link) posted videos from a rally conducted in front of the Shiv Sena Bhavan recently, which also contain similar flags.
Next, observing the green flags in the video, we found many discrepancies between the original Pakistani flag and the flag being waved in the viral video. You can see the difference between both these flags in the following collage.
Firstly, the Pakistani flag (here and here) has a white band. Apart from the white band, it has a majority green portion on which a crescent moon and star can be seen in white colour.
However, the flag in the viral video does not have a white band. Additionally, it also has numerous stars on it. This is similar to the generic Islamic/ Muslim flag commonly available on various e-commerce websites and not the Pakistani flag.
Similarly, FACTLY has previously debunked several such claims where Islamic flags and IUML flags were mistaken for Pakistani National Flag. They can be read here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
To sum up, the green flags seen being waved in this viral video are not Pakistani national flags; they are Islamic flags.
Note: This article was updated on 11 June 2024, to include an introduction and a paragraph with links to related previous articles.
