A few days ago, news had emerged that actor Salman Khan had been declared a terrorist by Pakistan after the actor seemed to refer to Balochistan as a separate entity from the country. Now, Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has cleared the air on the matter.
Pak ministry breaks silence on Salman Khan terror watchlist news
On Sunday, the ministry’s official fact-checking team took to Twitter (now X) to address news reports that Salman was on a terror watch list. The tweet contained a screenshot of a headline that read: ‘Pakistan puts Salman Khan on terror watchlist after Balochistan remark’. A stamp proclaiming ‘Fake news / unverified’ was embossed upon the screenshot.
The text highlighted the claim, citing the news report: “Salman Khan has allegedly been placed on Pakistan’s “Fourth Schedule” under its Anti-Terrorism Act after making remarks about Balochistan, and is labelled a “terror facilitator”. (Reported by India Today and other Indian outlets).”
‘Claim is unverified and false’
The account then wrote, “No Pakistani government official statement, notification or entry was found on NACTA’s proscribed persons page or any Ministry of Interior / provincial Home Department gazette notifying Salman Khan’s inclusion in Fourth Schedule.”
It further added, “All publicly available reports stem from Indian media outlets repeating the allegation, but none trace back to an official Pakistani watch-list publication or formal announcement.”
In conclusion, the Pak MoIB stated, “In absence of verifiable primary evidence, the claim remains unverified and false. Given the optics, this appears to be a sensational headline rather than a substantiated fact.”
In the tweet, the account then mentioned some ‘possible motives’ behind the story linking them to sensationalism.
What Salman Khan had said
Earlier this month, Salman Khan attended the Joy Forum 2025 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he took the stage with Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan. While on stage, the actor addressed the mass appeal of Indian films in the Middle East and said, “Right now, if you make a Hindi film and release it here (in Saudi Arabia), it will be a superhit. 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.”
Balochistan is a province located in the southwestern region of Pakistan, bordered by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh. The province has been demanding autonomy and independence since 1947, and it was further renewed after Bangladesh’s formation in 1971. Human rights violations, resource exploitation and political marginalisation. About 10,000 Baloch have disappeared in Pakistan since 2011, according to Amnesty International data.
