Fact check: Photo of Imran’s elders not from 1930 RTC

ISLAMABAD: Social media users and commentators are calling out former premier Imran Khan for misrepresenting the truth after he shared a photograph showing his relations seated purportedly at the 1930 Round Table Conference.

Khan posted the photograph on the social media Sunday evening, with the caption, “The historic Round Table Conference London 1930 with both Quaid i Azam & Allama Iqbal present. The picture is pride of my family because my grandfather’s brother Mohammad Zaman Khan (after whom Zaman Park was named) and my khaloo Jahangir Khan were also present (second and third from left).”

Internet sleuths were quick to point out that neither of the two relatives mentioned by Imran Khan were ever present at the Round Table Conference[s]. A look at the list of delegates present at the conference, available on the website of UK’s Open University, confirmed this.

While the online sleuthing too led to some more confusion, with people also assuming the gentlemen in question did not make part of the photo, the most likely explanation for the misrepresented image is that the two relations — Imran’s maternal grand-uncle and Imran’s ‘khaloo’ — were present sometime between 1930 and 1934 in London and happened to form part of a dinner that also had Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Iqbal in attendance. Anything else would be conjecture.

For clarity: Imran’s maternal grandfather — Ahmad Hassan Khan — had three daughters: Iqbal Bano, Mubarak Khanam, Shaukat Khanam. Iqbal Bano married General Wajid Ali Burki, while Mubarak married Jehangir Khan, who was a cricketer. He played for India during the British Raj and is remembered for an incident when his ball struck and killed a sparrow during a match at Lord’s Cricket Ground.

The list hosted by the UK’s Open University of the delegates at the Roundtable Conference does not mention the presence of any ‘Mohammad Zaman Khan’ or any variation of this name — so there is little doubt that neither of these gentlemen ever formed part of the RTC.

This is not the first time Imran Khan has shared this photograph with similar incorrect information. Earlier, he had shared the image in 2018 on Independence Day, mentioning that Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Iqbal were sitting next to his relatives.