Year-old video of drill participants falsely linked to Pakistan-administered Kashmir clashes
- Published on June 18, 2026 at 10:19
- 3 min read
- By Yusra JABEEN, AFP Pakistan
Violent clashes between members of a banned protest movement and police in Pakistan-administered Kashmir in June 2026 left dozens dead and wounded, but posts claiming the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) supporters were faking their injuries are misrepresenting old, unrelated footage. The video used in the posts was filmed a year earlier in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and shows people who had taken part in a mock drill organised by emergency services.
The video, showing several men on a bus with their faces and clothes apparently stained with red paint, was shared on X on June 9.
"Awami action committee's fake video production house video," says part of its caption, referring to the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) that was banned by the government of Pakistan-administered Kashmir under anti-terror laws (archived link).
The local government said the group -- which was protesting against authorities to demand economic and governance reforms -- has "engaged in terrorism" by "creating anarchy".
"Awami Action committee is enemy of the people of Kashmir. Doing makeup to show injured and dead. Pathetic people," the caption adds.
The same clip was also shared in similar X posts claiming the men had been paid by India.
Muslim-majority Kashmir is claimed in full by both Pakistan and India, and has been divided between them since their independence from British rule. The area is considered highly sensitive by the Pakistani military and government after years of frequent skirmishes and full-blown wars with India.
The posts circulated as JAAC supporters pressed ahead with protests despite the government's ban, and violent clashes left dozens of people dead and wounded. Protests, sit-ins and business strikes have paralysed daily life in many towns across the region, according to officials and residents who also reported widespread mobile internet outages.
According to an AFP tally based on official data, the death toll from the clashes stood at 22 as of June 17 (archived link). The toll includes four law enforcement personnel, and police say 89 officers have been wounded during the clashes.
The video, however, predates these protests.
Fire drill participants
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to the same clip posted on TikTok on May 29, 2025 (archived link).
The clip is captioned "Fire exercise".
The person who filmed the clip, Spen Khan, is from Swat in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
He told AFP over WhatsApp that the footage circulating on social media was recorded when he and friends were participating in a fire drill in Swat organised by the emergency service Rescue 1122.
"We applied red paint to make ourselves look convincingly injured as part of the fire drill," he said on June 11, 2026.
He added that he uploaded the video to entertain viewers and increase his following, not for any political purpose.
"The video appeared in my TikTok memories so I reshared it," Khan told AFP. "There was no other reason."
He posted a separate video of the drill on May 30, 2025, and another clip showing the same friends posing with a Rescue 1122 officer (archived here and here). The clip was also shared by a Rescue 1122 officer on TikTok (archived link).
Khan has since shared another video on his TikTok page addressing the false claims about his footage (archived link).
"I am getting too many comments on this video, but I want to clarify it has nothing to do with the ongoing Kashmir protests. This was part of our training," he says.
AFP has previously debunked other misinformation about Kashmir.
Copyright © AFP 2017-2026. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
