Old video of stage collapse in Pakistan is going viral with communal claims

The video shows a stage collapse during a political gathering in Pakistan in 2018. The person in the video was not talking about Jews.

A video which shows several people standing on a stage which collapses after a while has gone viral on social media with the claim that the stage collapsed after an ‘Imam’ spoke against Jews in Pakistan.

The caption of the post states that, “The timing is Divine! An imam in Pakistan preaches that he had a dream in which it said that all Jews must be exterminated. He goes on to say, “If this is not true, may the ground sink beneath me.” Look what happens”.

Let’s check the truth.

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Fact Check- 

A Google reverse image search using the key frames from the video led us to a similar video posted on the Voice of America’s Facebook page on 18 July, 2018.

The description states, “A stage collapsed during an election rally held by religious political party Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan’s Mohmand tribal district, near the Afghan border. Party president Sirajul Haq and other leaders were on the stage but unharmed in the incident”.

In further search we found the same video uploaded to the YouTube channel of Public News on the same date. The video was titled: “Stage collapses during Jamaat-e-Islami election campaign.” This was the longer version of the viral video.This indicates that the viral video is not recent at all.

Keeping this in mind, we conducted relevant keyword search which led us to a report shared by The Express Tribune on 18 July 2018. According to the report, the stage set up for a Jamaat-e-Islami political rally in Peshawar collapsed after party workers overburdened it. “The incident happened as people more than the maximum capacity of the makeshift stage tried to get a place on it, JI information secretary Qaisar Sharif said, adding that all of them including the party chief remained safe in the incident”.

It further stated that the leaders spoke about the Islamic system in Pakistan rather than Jews, as claimed.

Next, for further clarification, we contacted an Urdu professor in Cochin, who confirmed to us that it shows the leaders welcoming other party leaders. Political leaders were not speaking about Jews. The speaker was merely welcoming attendees. The subtitles in Hebrew are fake.

From these evidences, it is clear that the video going viral is old, which is being shared as recent. Besides, the claim also wrong.

Conclusion- 

Fact Crescendo found the claim made along with the viral video to be False.

The viral video is old, which is being shared as recent. The video shows a stage collapse during a political gathering in Pakistan in 2018. The person in the video was not talking about Jews.