| schema:text
| - Fact Check: Did Pakistan govt ban Mahashivratri celebrations?
Taking advantage of the ongoing tensions between religious communities in Pakistan, a post regarding the ban of Mahashivratri celebrations in Karachi is going viral on social media.
Listen to Story
India Today Fact Check
The claim is false. Hindus in Pakistan celebrated Mahashivratri even in 2020.
As stories of violence against the minority Hindu community in Pakistan continue to surface, the Human Right Commission of Pakistan has also condemned violence against religious minorities in the country. However, for decades the Mahashivratri celebration in a Shiva temple in Karachi has been a tradition for the Hindu community in Pakistan.
Taking advantage of the ongoing tensions between religious communities in Pakistan, a post regarding the ban of Mahashivratri celebrations in Karachi is going viral on social media. According to the post, the decades-old Mahashivratri celebration held annually in Karachi was cancelled this year. The post also equates the incident to the ongoing atrocities against minority communities in Pakistan.
"In 1920 #Mahashivratri was celebrated at Karachi. It Just took 100 years to completely eradicate the festival at the place," reads one such post on Twitter.
#DharmicTwitter
In 1920 #Mahashivratri was celebrated at Karachi. It Just took 100 years to completely eradicate the festival at the place#MahaShivRatri2020 pic.twitter.com/02YW35tVWx — Tamils are Hindus - (@56TamilHindu) February 22, 2020
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be false. Pakistani Hindus celebrated the Shivratri festival in Karachi between February 21 and 23, 2020.
Posts claiming the eradication of Mahashivratri celebrations in Karachi have been shared by multiple Twitter handles since the past few months.
It went viral with a black and white image of Mahashivratri Celebration at Clifton in Karachi. The post claims the image dates back to 1920. The posts received more than 600 retweets and 1.1k likes.
Maha Shivratri Celebration in Karachi 1920.
Vanished in Just 100 Years!! pic.twitter.com/i2Y32XiicO — Indu Makkal Katchi ( Official ) (@Indumakalktchi) February 22, 2020
AFWA probe
We found a tweet by Pakistani cricketer Danish Kaneria regarding his visit to Shri Ratneshwar Mahadev Temple in Karachi for Shivratri.
"On the auspicious occasion of #Mahashivratri, had darshan at Shri Ratneshwar Mahadev Temple in Karachi. May Bhagwan Mahadev bless you all with happiness," the cricketer tweeted on February 21, 2020 with a video of his visit to the temple.
On the auspicious occasion of #Mahashivratri, had darshan at Shri Ratneshwar Mahadev Temple in Karachi. May Bhagwan Mahadev bless you all with happiness. #HarHarMahadev pic.twitter.com/nFkSDA9SfR — Danish Kaneria (@DanishKaneria61) February 21, 2020
We also found videos of Shivratri celebrations uploaded on YouTube in February 2020.
A YouTube channel, Sameer with Mahesh, has uploaded the video of Shivaratri celebration in Shri Ratneshwar Mahadev Temple in Karachi on February 21, 2020. "Maha Shivratri in Pakistan | Pakistani Hindus Celebrating Maha Shivratri 2020," reads the title of the video.
We could also find news reports on Pakistan preparing for Shivaratri celebrations 2020 by gulfnews.com and mmnews.tv.
We also researched the authenticity of the image used with the viral claim. We could find the same image on a Pakistani website defence.pk.
"MAHA SHIVRATRI HINDU FESTIVAL CLIFTON KARACHI," reads the tagline of the image. However, there was no mention of when the image was clicked.
Another website, PaperJewels.org, a website for the book Paper Jewels Postcards from the Raj, however, states that the image was clicked in 1920.
Mahashivaratri, a Hindu festival is celebrated annually in honour of Lord Shiva across the world by Hindu communities. In Pakistan as well, the fourteenth day of every lunar month or the day before the new moon is celebrated as Shivaratri.
However, according to an article by Dawn, Paksitani Hindus have been historically visiting the Shree Ratneshwar Mahadev Temple in Clifton, Karachi. "Due to its location so near the beach, the historic Shree Ratneshwar Mahadev Temple in Clifton was the ideal spot for celebrating Shivratri, also known as 'night of Shiva'," said Dawn in its 2016 article.
Meanwhile, we couldn't find any news article by local or international media regarding the cancellation or ban of Mahasivratri in Karachi or any other parts of Pakistan.
Hence, the claim that Mahasivratri celebrations in Karachi were cancelled or banned in 2020 is false. The celebrations were held between February 21 and 23 in various parts of the country including Karachi.
Please share it on our at 73 7000 7000
You can also send us an email at factcheck@intoday.com
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)