Don’t believe everything you see on the internet: Here is a lesson that Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan should have taken more seriously.
In a recent goof up, the 65-year-old chairperson of Tehreek-e-Insaaf, a Pakistani political party, not only profiled ‘Shashikala’ as Jayalalithaa, by calling her “a famous South Indian actress turned politician in India's Tamil Nadu”. He even went on to announce her “recent” death on Twitter.
This was accompanied by pictures of “gold reserves, jewels” and an “illegal stash of money” found at her residence.
He tweeted this on Tuesday, but seemed to have realised his error and deleted the tweet quickly. However, he couldn’t delete it soon enough for screenshots of the same started circulating the internet soon.
Dear @ImranKhanPTI you got it completely wrong. Sasikala is in jail. Her friend Jayalalitha, ex-CM of Tamil Nadu, died late last year and those pictures are obviously fake. One expects better from a senior politician like you. pic.twitter.com/6arkmZBYVD
— Sadiq S Bhat (@sadiquiz) December 19, 2017
Wionews also posted the pictures that Imran Khan seems to have tweeted originally.
Not only did he mistake Sasikala as a south Indian actor-turned-politician, very clearly mixing her up with Jayalalithaa, but also declared her dead!
Sasikala is very much alive, Mr Khan, even though she is in Parapanna Agrahara Central Prison in Bengaluru where she is serving a four-year sentence for corruption after being convicted in the disproportionate assets case by the Supreme Court along with Jayalalithaa.
The Income Tax department did raid Poes Garden, Jayalalithaa’s former residence, last month. However, they have not revealed if they found any riches, let alone what Imran Khan said in his tweet.
Raids on Jayalithaa’s Chennai and Hyderabad homes in 1996 did lead to the recovery of valuables and documents of property worth Rs 58 crore. Thirty kilograms of gold and 500 kg of silver were also found, along with over 100 wrist watches, over 150 curios and semi-precious stones.
However, the photos posted by Imran Khan show a cellar filled with gold plates – which was not found in the 1996 raids either.