Supporters of jailed Pakistan ex-PM share edited TV interview
- Published on September 29, 2025 at 10:35
- 3 min read
- By Masroor GILANI, AFP Pakistan
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"Imran Khan narrated a memorable story in an Indian show which is so funny," reads a TikTok post from June 9, 2025.
The accompanying video -- which has racked up more than one million views -- appears to show Indian TV host Kapil Sharma showing a clip of Khan on his show.
"Watch a small glimpse of Imran Khan with your own eyes, please have a look," Sharma apparently says.
Khan is then shown recounting his experience building a cancer hospital named after his mother in the 1990s.
He narrates how poor people took him to a mosque in Lahore's low-income Ghari Shahu neighbourhood and donated money for building the hospital.
"Believe me, in five minutes the entire mosque was filled up with people," Khan says.
"They appeared very poor and on seeing them I said, 'You keep your money, I will build the hospital without it'. But they insisted and said they wanted to contribute to hospital."
Similar posts claiming Khan appeared on Kapil Sharma's show also recently surfaced among his supporters on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
The 72-year-old former prime minister has been held in custody since August 2023, charged in around 200 cases that he claims are politically motivated (archived link).
He has been convicted four times since his arrest, with two convictions overturned and the sentences in the other two cases suspended.
Khan's popularity continues to undermine a shaky coalition government that kept his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party from power in the nation's most recent elections.
Even from behind bars, he has fired off statements through his legal team railing against the government and promising to fight his battles through the courts.
But Khan has not made any public appearance since he was jailed, and the circulating video is edited.
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes found the original episode of The Kapil Sharma Show published on YouTube on May 6, 2023 (archived link).
It features actor Sonu Sood, who was lauded for his work helping people across India during Covid lockdowns.
The episode was the first that aired after virus curbs shut down filming for the popular show, according to a July 2020 report from India TV news channel (archived link).
Nowhere in the episode did Khan appear, and the audio in the circulating clip has been edited to make it seem Sharma mentioned his name.
A separate reverse search found the video showing Khan was taken from a YouTube post titled, "Imran Khan Dinner at Royal Nawab", published by London-based online outlet TVapex on July 27, 2016 (archived link).
Royal Nawab is a restaurant in London where Khan addressed a fundraiser in May 2016 in a bid to build a university in his native northwestern town of Mianwali (archived link).
There have been no official reports about Khan appearing on The Kapil Sharma Show.
AFP has debunked more misinformation related to the former leader here.
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