A video has surfaced on social media linking it to the swearing-in ceremony of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The clip shows a woman reciting the Gayatri mantra in the presence of former PM Nawaz Sharif claiming that the mantra was recited during the swearing-in ceremony, implying official recognition of its importance in Pakistan.
A Facebook user posted with a caption: 🌸PAKISTAN 🇵🇰 PRIME MINISTER’s SWEARING IN CEREMONY STARTING WITH 🌸 “GAYATRI MAHA MANTRA” 🌸 by smt. NARODA MALINI SAHIBA. Now Pakistan has officially recognised the importance & its recited in all functions. 👌👍🌸🌹.
The above post can be seen here.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the above post, and found it to be fake.
Running a Reverse Image Search of the video keyframes, we traced a YouTube video with similar visuals on the official channel of NEWS18 India, dated March 23, 2017, with a title: “Jab Pakistan Me Nawaj Sharif Ke Saamne Goonja Gayatri Mantra”.
Searching further, our team found another YouTube video, dated March 17, 2017, with a title: “Pakistan: Gayatri mantra sung in presence of Nawaz Sharif in Holi celebration”. This suggests that the event was from a Holi celebration in Pakistan.
On March 21, 2017, BBC Hindi had also uploaded a video report on its official YouTube channel showcasing the vocalist from the viral video, under the headline, “Meet Narodha, who sang Gayatri mantra in Pakistan”.
Therefore, we can conclusively state that a 2017 Holi celebration clip is being falsely circulated as Gayatri mantra recited during the recent swearing-in ceremony in Pakistan.
