Fact Check: Imran Khan falsely claims that PTI worker from Malakand was killed during Azadi March

Claim: A PTI activist from Mardan was killed last week as a result of Punjab police’s acts of brutality

Fact: The banner showed images of Muhammad Zada Agra who was killed by drug smugglers in 2021

During the PTI Workers’ Convention in Charsadda, Imran Khan raised a banner to tribute the two PTI workers which he alleged in this tweet were killed during last week’s processions. This tweet has 1,135 total Twitter interactions and was shared to 829,798 social media users on Twitter.

He named these workers to be Faisal Abbas Chaudhry from Lahore and Syed Ahmed Jan from Mardan in his tweet and claimed that they both died as a result of police violence.

My heartfelt condolences go to the families of our two martyred PTI workers, Faisal Abbas Chaudhry from Lahore & Syed Ahmed Jan from Mardan as a result of Punjab police violence during our peaceful Azadi March. PTI will take full financial responsibility for their families.

— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) May 26, 2022

During his speech, not only did he say the name of the second activist from Mardan was Syed Ali Shah, but the banner which he raised, showed an image which showed Muhammad Zada Agra, a journalist and social activist who was murdered in Sakhakot, his home city in Malakand, for Agra’s reporting and advocacy against local drug cartels, in 2021.

Although Agra was a PTI supporter and a former district president of the Insaf Students Federation, the student wing of PTI, he was not murdered by the police or on the dictation of Rana Sanaullah, as Khan claims in his address.

In fact, this Committee to Protect Journalists’ report explains that the Deputy Commissioner Malakand district police announced that the two men who killed Agra were confirmed to be associated with local drug smugglers after their arrest.

Verdict: MISLEADING