Last week, a report circulated on social media that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan‘s wife, Bushra Bibi, tested positive for coronavirus. The former World Cup-winning captain was also tested but found negative, and his driver infected with the virus, the report said. This has come as a surprise to many in the country.
However, the news turned out to be fake. This news about Imran Khan‘s wife, who suffers from COVID-19, has gone viral on social media with a picture of the leading news channel Aaj Tak giving news. But it was found to be a morphing image, and nothing like that happened.
A popular site boom did an actual check to confirm the news and reported many problems with the graphic, which went viral.
Here’s the tweet:
Imran Khan's wife – Corona positive, he himself is negative. But his driver also found to be positive. pic.twitter.com/lRr4UQXCcn
— Dr. Ashok Mahapatra (@DrAKMahapatra) April 12, 2020
The story wasn’t available on the news website.
According to Boom, the biggest drawback of the graphic is the obscure logo of Aaj Tak at the top right of the screen. Moreover, the news is nowhere available on its official website. Besides, the app promotion of the news agency on the lower right is also unclear, but the strip’s breaking news link is not correctly included in the upper left corner.
The image was photographed, and none of the people associated with Imran Khan were tested positive for coronavirus. The trend of fake news around the world has increased in the wake of the pandemic in the last few weeks, and concerned authorities are making the public aware of it now and then.
As far as Pakistan is concerned, the country is currently on lockdown, and there have been over 7200 coronavirus cases so far. Of these, 5335 cases were still active, 1765 were recovered from the virus, and 136 lost their lives.
Poor people in many countries are suffering due to the lockdown, and for that reason, former pacer Shoaib Akhtar proposed a charity series between India and Pakistan. But the suggestion has drawn much criticism from former cricketers and is unlikely to move forward.
