Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
A video is doing the rounds of social media with users claiming it to be a “Hindu MP begging for mercy in Pakistan’s parliament to spare our (Hindu) daughters”. In the video, you can see the “MP” pleading the case of a forced conversion of a 12-year-old girl to Islam and the indifference of the authorities concerned in front of the assembly’s speaker.
Archived version of the tweet can be seen here.
Fact check
Newschecker first ran a keyword search for “Hindu MP Pakistan assembly”, which did not throw up any news reports of such an incident.
We then looked up the National Assembly of Pakistan’s official website and did not find the man in the viral video among the 10 non-Muslim members of the Pakistan national assembly (MNA), raising doubts.
While going through the viral tweets, we came across a comment stating that the man in the video is a Christian MPA (member of provincial assembly) from Punjab.
A relevant keyword search led us to this tweet, dated September 15, 2022, which attached the same viral video. According to the tweet, the legislator is Tariq Masih Gill, a Christian MPA from Punjab province, who was talking about the kidnap and forcible conversion of a 12-year-old Christian girl.
Taking a cue from this, we ran a search and came across this 8:48-minute Youtube video, dated August 20, 2022, from NY News, titled “MPA Tariq Masih Gill bold speech at National Assembly of Pakistan on forced religious conversions.” At the 3:18 mark we see the excerpt of the video that became viral. The same video was also uploaded by a Youtube channel named “Tariq Masih Gill MPA”. We could not independently verify whether it was the MPA’s official Youtube channel.
According to the official website of the provincial assembly of Punjab, Tariq Masih Gill, a Christian, was re-elected as member, Provincial Assembly of Punjab, for a second consecutive term in 2018, against one of the eight seats reserved for non-Muslims.
We then came across this report, dated September 23, 2022, from a Pakistan-based media outlet, Journalism for Human Rights, which stated that this particular legislator, Gill, has been raising his voice against the kidnap and forced-conversion case of one 13-year-old Christian girl, Zaria Pervaiz, which happened in Rawalpindi, Punjab province. The case was confirmed via multiple media reports, dated August 17, August 18 and August 21, seen here, here and here. From the news reports and official profile, we can confirm it is Tariq Masih Gill in the viral video.
Conclusion
The viral video of ‘Pakistani Hindu MP begging for mercy’ in their national assembly was found to be of Christian legislator’s outburst against forced religious conversions.
Result: Partly false
Sources
Video analysis
Video uploaded on Youtube by NY News on August 20, 2022
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Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
