Fact-check: Geo has not deleted any YouTube videos about Jahangir Tareen

Twitter posts falsely claim that Geo Television has deleted all video clips, and news programs aired between 2019 and 2020, from its official YouTube channel, related to politician Jahangir Khan Tareen and the multi-billion rupee sugar and wheat industry scam investigation.

Claim

On June 8, an online user tweeted: “Geo News has deleted 302 programs against Jahangir Tareen on the sugar scandal.”

The tweet has been viewed 67 times, at the time of writing.

The identical text has been shared by other Twitter users. 

While some Facebook and Twitter users also questioned if the claims were indeed true.

“Has Geo News deleted 302 programs related to Jahangir Tareen and the sugar scandal from YouTube?” one user wrote.

The tweet has been retweeted over 11,000 times and liked 28,000 times, to date.

A similar text was shared on Facebook, which has also accumulated thousands of interactions.

Fact

None of the news programs related to Jahangir Khan Tareen and the sugar scandal of 2019 and 2020 have been deleted or removed from the YouTube channel of Geo Television, the broadcaster confirmed.

In 2020, two reports by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) were made public naming politician Jahangir Khan Tareen, amongst others, for allegedly benefiting from government subsidies on the export of sugar, as well as profiting from an increase in prices at the time.

“The claim is not true,” said Raza Mehdi, the senior social media manager at Geo Television, “You may find all programs links, along with playlists’ URLs. These links can be accessed globally by anyone.”

He further clarified that no show regarding Tareen and the sugar scandal had been removed or deleted from any of the newscast’s platforms.

Mehdi then shared with Geo Fact Check five YouTube links, as well as a playlist of news programs Geo Television aired during the period when the sugar scam report was in the news in 2020.

Some of those videos can be viewed here, here and here.

With additional reporting by Muhammad Binyameen Iqbal

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