Old Afghanistan video falsely linked to India-Pakistan conflict

Published on May 13, 2025 at 07:25
3 min read
By Devesh MISHRA, AFP India

Before New Delhi and Islamabad agreed to a halt to the worst violence between the nuclear-armed neighbours in decades, a video of long lines outside banks was shared in posts falsely claiming it showed "panic" in Pakistan. The footage has in fact circulated since August 2021 in news reports about banking restrictions in Afghanistan.

"There is an amazing panic atmosphere in Pakistan. There are long queues in front of every ATM, people are withdrawing money and storing rations," reads the Hindi-language caption of an X video posted on May 6, 2025.

The video, shared by an account with more than 105,000 followers, shows clips of people lining up outside banks.

Screenshot of the false X post, captured on May 10, 2025

At least 60 people were killed after four days of missile, drone and artillery attacks between India and Pakistan before a ceasefire was unexpectedly announced by US President Donald Trump on social media (archived link).

The alarming spiral towards all-out conflict began on May 7 when India launched missile attacks destroying what it called "terrorist camps" in the Pakistani part of Kashmir. This followed an April 22 attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, which killed 26 civilians.

India accused Pakistan of backing the attack but Islamabad denied involvement and immediately responded to the missile strikes with heavy artillery fire.

Similar posts on Facebook also misrepresented the footage as showing panicked residents in Pakistan.

But a reverse image search using keyframes from the circulating footage found it closely resembles parts of longer video posted on the Facebook page of the Aghan broadcaster Ariana News on August 30, 2021 (archived link).

A close-up showing the logo of the State Bank of Pakistan in the circulating video have been added to this footage.

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the 2021 Ariana News video (right)

A report from Turkish media organisation TRT World published on August 31, 2021 that also contains the footage said the long lines in the capital Kabul were caused by fears of further banking restrictions after the Taliban limited withdrawals to 200 dollars a day from personal accounts (archived link).

A photo from the Anadolu Agency taken on September 1, 2021 -- which was also distributed by AFP -- shows the same building in Kabul.

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the Anadolu Agency photo showing the same location (right)

AFP has debunked other misinformation about the India-Pakistan clashes here, here and here.

Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.

E-mail