The edited image goes viral as the Dawn report states the reason behind the floods in Pakistan

Journalists from Pakistan confirmed to Fact Crescendo that the image is Fake and no such news has been published by the Dawn.

While Europe, China, and some other regions of the world are experiencing a severe drought, Pakistan is facing one of the worst floods in its recent history. Reports say about 110 of the 150 districts in the country are affected by the flooding. Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said on Sunday that over 1,000 people had been confirmed dead in the floods so far.

In the backdrop of this, a screenshot of news published by Pakistani media organization-  The Dawn is widely circulating on social media. 

The headline of this news states, “Flood in Pakistan is not due to Climate Change, but because people are not reading Quran.” The news is claimed to be published on  27 August 2022.

Social media users are mocking the organization stating that climate change is a myth.

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Fact Check-

We started our investigation by running a keyword search on Google, but we could not find any relevant news reports on the same.

Next, we searched on the Dawn’s website to find the relevant news report published on 27 August 2022.

We found the news report published on 27 August with the same thumbnail image. However, the headline of this report was different.

The original headline states, “Army called in as KP faces flood threat.” Thus, this makes it clear that the viral image is edited. The dawn has not published any such news report stating that “Flood in Pakistan is not due to Climate Change, but because people are not reading Quran.” The report was written by Manzoor Ali, Saleem Shahid, Iftikhar A. Khan on 27 August 2022.

The report mentions that “The government decided to deploy the army in all provinces to help the civilian authorities in rescue operations in the calamity-hit areas in Pakistan.”

Below you can see a comparison between the viral edited image and the original image.

Next, Fact Crescendo contacted a journalist from the Dawn- Imran Gabol, who confirmed to us that the viral image was edited and no such news has been published by the Dawn.

We also spoke with a multimedia journalist from Peshawar- Izharullah who confirmed to us that the viral image is fake and shared the original image of the news report with us.

Conclusion-

Fact Crescendo found the viral image to be Altered. The Dawn did not publish a story claiming that the floods in Pakistan were caused by people not reading the Quran. The image has been altered and is being distributed with a false claim. The original headline of the report states, “Army called in as KP faces flood threat.”