As PTI workers powered through police obstacles amid intense shelling on Wednesday night to reach D-Chowk in Islamabad at the call of their leader Imran Khan, social media was swamped with minute-by-minute updates of live action but also with some misinformation.
While television footage did show smoke rising from the ground and fires in the green belts adjacent to Islamabad's main roads, the reports of a metro bus station been torched were wide of the mark.
The report of the station's purported torching was floated on Twitter by senior journalists Talat Hussain, Amber Rahim Shamsi and Murtaza Ali Shah. The trio, in separate tweets, shared footage of a fire burning at a considerable distance and linked it to the alleged burning of the metro bus station near D-Chowk.
A first information report registered at the Kohsar police station on Thursday also mentioned that a metro bus station near Geo Chowk had been set on fire.
However, a fact check run by Dawn.com correspondent, which included in-person inspection of the bus station, has found the claim to be untrue.
Upon further investigation, it has been found that the object on fire in the video was not the metro station but a tree located in the greenbelt behind the Parade Ground.
The videos shared by the trio of journalists were re-tweeted by hundreds of users as they lapped up the information coming their way, assuming that its veracity was unquestionable.
In fact, the footage shared by Hussain garnered more than 3,500 retweets.
Dawn.com also acquired footage shot on the site today, which showed that the metro bus station not only stood in once piece but was completely undamaged, contrary to what was said in the captions of the videos shared on Twitter.
Here are a few more images of the metro bus station.
from The Dawn News - Home https://ift.tt/JtE80WC
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