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.
Claim
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Twitter congratulates the “people of Karnataka” for electing Congress in the Karnataka Assembly elections.
We received this claim on our Whatsapp tipline (9999499044), requesting it to be fact-checked.
Fact
Newschecker first looked up Shehbaz Sharif’s Twitter account, where we did not find any tweet related to the Karnataka elections on May 13. There were three tweets on May 13, seen here, here and here, the date seen in the viral screenshot. The analytics tool, Social Blade,too, confirmed that no other tweet was made.
A relevant keyword search led us to the earliest instance of the viral screenshot, which was posted by a parody account, @N0rbertElekes, on May 13.
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Newschecker had already fact-checked another viral “tweet” by Sharif on May 7, just ahead of voting day (May 10), where Sharif is allegedly urging the people of Karnataka to vote for Karnataka so that they can reactivate PFI to strengthen Islam in India. Newschecker found that no such tweet had been made.
Result: False
Sources
Shehbaz Sharif’s Twitter account
Tweet by @N0rbertElekes, May 13
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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.
