Images purporting to be related to the recent looting that occurred after the opening of the Dream Bazaar Mall in Karachi, Pakistan, are being widely shared on social media (here, here, and here). The photo that went viral shows a building named ‘Dream Bazaar Mall’ and a crowd with lots of garbage falling around it. Many users have shared this viral photo believing it to be real. Let’s verify the authenticity of the post through this article.
CLAIM: Image showing the exterior of the looted Dream Bazaar mall in Karachi, Pakistan.
Fact: The image being circulated was generated by AI and is not of the Culci incident. On August 30, 2024, Dream Bazaar Mall in Gulistan-e-Johar, Karachi attracted a huge crowd with huge opening day discounts. When mall staff closed store doors due to the large crowd, frustration arose, leading to some people forcibly breaking down the doors. Therefore, the claims in this post are misleading.
During the investigation, it was discovered that the photo had some flaws. The words “Dream Bazaar” were displayed distorted on the building, and the glass windows also looked abnormal. Additionally, the architectural design of the building on the left looked strange and the sign was partially covered, which is unusual. The crowd in the image also appeared to have distorted and blurred hands and feet, raising further questions about the authenticity of the image.
We then used Hive AI to analyze the images and found that 99.9% were generated by AI.
For further verification, we used another tool called Hugging Face, which also showed that the image was created with the help of artificial intelligence. According to the tool, 65% of the content in images is generated using AI.
Additionally, a Google keyword search found reports on Karachi’s ‘Dream Bazaar Mall’ (here and here). According to these reports, on August 30, 2024, a shopping mall in Karachi’s Gulistan-e-Johar area offered deep discounts on its first day of opening to attract customers. As a result, a large crowd gathered outside. In response, mall staff closed the store’s doors, which enraged the crowd, who forcibly broke down the doors. Mall employees struggled to control the situation.
The location outside ‘Dream Bazaar Mall’ was shown in a video uploaded to Pakistan’s Ajrak TV YouTube channel on August 31, 2024.. The location appears to be quite different from the scene in the viral image, confirming that the viral image is not from Karachi.
In summary, this viral image is not from Karachi. This is an AI-generated photo that was misleadingly shared in connection with the recent looting incident at Dream Bazaar Mall in Gulistan-e-Johar, Karachi.
