Viral Letter About Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s Death Is Fake

The letter is fake. There are no credible reports confirming former Pakistan PM Imran Khan's death.

A fake letter which claims that former Pakistan PM Imran Khan died in judicial custody on 10 May has gone viral on social media.

(Source: X/Altered by by The Quint)

A viral document bearing the letterhead of the Government of Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which announces the death of former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has gone viral on social media.

An archived version of this claim can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

We also received a query to verify this claim on our WhatsApp tipline.

(Archived versions of more posts sharing this letter can be seen here, here, and here.)

Is it true?: No, the letter is fake.

• There are no credible reports to corroborate the veracity of the letter, which carries grammatical errors.

• Additionally, Pakistan's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has also dismissed the claim.

How do we know?: When we carefully went through this purported press release, we saw that it contained some grammatical errors.

• Instead of saying 'is actively', the letter carries the word "isetively" and makes a similar mistake while saying "realfirm" instead of 'reaffirm'.

The letter carries misspelt words in two places.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

• These indicate that the letter may not be authentic, as such glaring errors are not usually seen in official government-issued documents.

• Next, we conducted a keyword search for reports about Khan's death, but did not find any credible reports corroborating the claim.

• However, we came across recent reports about Khan's party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) filing a petition seeking his immediate release for judicial custody fearing attacks amid the rising tensions between India and Pakistan, which can be read here and here.

We found several reports about PTI's pleas for Imran Khan's release.

(Source: The Independent/Screenshot)

We also found an X post by Pakistan's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, which dismissed the viral letter and called it "fake news."

Conclusion: A fake letter announcing former Pakistan PM Imran Khan's death has gone viral on social media.

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