A viral claim on social media alleges that Pakistani authorities have issued a notification placing Bollywood actor Salman Khan on the fourth schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act, after Khan allegedly spoke about Balochistan at a recent event in Saudi Arabia.
The fourth schedule is a list of individuals suspected of being terrorists or of having links with terrorist groups.
The claim is false. The notification is fabricated.
On October 25, a social media user posted a purported notification on X (formerly Twitter) showing the Government of Balochistan placing Indian actor Salman Khan on the fourth schedule.
The post claimed that Khan referred to Balochistan as an “independent nation” at a recent event.
Identical claims were also shared elsewhere on X, Instagram and Facebook here, here and here.
The notification is self-generated and has not been issued by Pakistani authorities, confirm two officials and a digital forensics platform.
Javed Ali, the section officer of the Home Department in Balochistan, told Geo Fact Check over the telephone: “The document is entirely fake.”
Ali explained that he issued a notification on October 16, placing a person’s name on the fourth schedule. The notification was later edited, he added, to include Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s name.
A senior official in Balochistan, who spoke to Geo Fact Check on condition of anonymity, also said that the notification was doctored.
Furthermore, the viral notification contains multiple inconsistencies and grammatical errors. For example, “affiliated” is spelled as “aftilisted”, and the document states “the following names” when only one name is listed.
Additionally, Attestiv, an AI content detection tool, gave the document a Tamper Score of 93.
Verdict: The claim that Pakistan has placed Bollywood actor Salman Khan on the fourth schedule of its Anti-Terrorism Act (1997) is false. The viral notification circulating online is a digitally doctored document.
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