Video of a Wedding Dance in Pakistan viral as Taliban Celebrating after Seizing Power In Afghanistan

After the Taliban seized Kabul, various social media posts in connection with Taliban and the present situation in Afghanistan have flooded social media. One such video doing the rounds is of some armed men dancing together during some kind of celebration. It has been claimed that the men in the video are Talibani militants who are celebrating after capturing Kabul. 

Here is one such link:

Original Link- Facebook | Archived Link

We, at Fact Crescendo English, decided to do a fact check on the claim as it seemed suspicious. We soon found out that the particular viral video is at least 4 months old and has no connection with the present situation in Afghanistan. The particular video has been uploaded and shared with a false claim taking it out of context. 

Fact Check Methodology

At first, we used the In Vid- WeVerify tool to split the viral video in keyframes after which we used the keyframes to perform a reverse image search on Yandex. We found that the video was uploaded to Instagram around 4 months ago in the month of April. 

Then we ran a keyword search and found out that the same video was uploaded by a Youtube Channel named Qaiser Khan on April 10, 2021 and it has around 37 thousand views so far. In the caption and the description of the video, it has been mentioned that it is actually of a pathan dance at a wedding celebration. 

UPDATE:

As we searched further, we found that the captions of some of the videos mentioned ‘Bannu’, the name of a district in Pakistan. The captions suggest the video is of a wedding.

Also, Pakistani journalist Iftikhar Firdaus shared a screenshot of a TV9 news report having the same video on his official Twitter handle with the caption: “Unbelievable an Indian Channel is showing a viral video of a marriage in Khyber Paktunkhwa, Pakistan. Dancers in the marriage are masquerading. The anchor is showing them as Taliban celebrating the take over of Maidan in Afghanistan . This is next level bullshit lol.. ”

Archived Link

Earlier Alt News identified the man seen in the video in blue clothes as Wahab Pukhtoon. 

Fact Crescendo also reached out to Wahab in Pakistan who said that this video was recorded on 19 March 2021 during a wedding. 

Over a call, Wahab told Fact Crescendo that he had gone to his friend Rafid Ullah Khan’s wedding at Sarwar Kitki village where someone recorded the video of him dancing. 

Wahab said he is from Bannu district of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan.

He also shared a group photograph clicked at the wedding in which we can clearly identify the group of persons seen in the viral video in the same outfits.

Conclusion

The viral video is actually from a wedding in Pakistan and does not show Taliban Militants celebrating after capturing Kabul. The video was recorded in March this year and has absolutely no connection with the current situation in Afghanistan.