Since October 26, multiple Indian users on X have been sharing a notification purportedly from the Balochistan Home Department that claimed Bollywood actor Salman Khan’s name had been added to the Fourth Schedule under Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Act. The Fourth Schedule lists individuals suspected of terrorism or sectarian activity. Being added to it is a serious designation, but the claims were quickly called into question.
The posts began circulating after an Indian user shared the alleged notification, suggesting the move was politically motivated following Salman Khan’s comments in Riyadh where he mentioned Balochistan separately from Pakistan. The post gained tens of thousands of views, and similar shares quickly followed, including coverage by Pakistani digital platform Urdu Leaks and some Indian media outlets.
iVerify Pakistan investigated the claims and found multiple red flags. A keyword search found no coverage of such a development by any credible local or international news outlet.
Examination of the notification revealed obvious errors, including misspellings like “committes” instead of committees, “affilisted” instead of affiliated, and “persses” instead of persons. The notification’s dates also did not align with the actor’s Riyadh event, as the document claimed the recommendation to add Salman was made on October 7, whereas he made his comments on October 16–17.
A review of the event showed Salman Khan attended from October 16 to 17 and said: “Right now, if you make a Hindi film and release it here [in Saudi Arabia], it will be a super hit. If you make a Tamil, Telugu or Malayali film, it will do hundreds of crores in business because so many people from other countries have come here. There are people from Balochistan, there are people from Afghanistan, there are people from Pakistan…everyone is working here.” No prior recent instance was found of him mentioning Balochistan separately from Pakistan.
Officials from the Balochistan Home Department and the information ministry also confirmed that the notification was entirely fabricated and that no such listing had been issued.
