Claim: A video shows gunmen opening fire at a crowd in the Pul-e-Khumri area of Afghanistan, reportedly killing 51 people over a dispute about a donkey.
Fact: The video is from an 8 September 2022 incident, when two groups in Karachi, Pakistan clashed over a money dispute.
Fact or Fiction?
On 15 September 2022, Daily Bol Pakistan shared a video on Facebook claiming that it shows worshippers killing a donkey for entering a mosque in the Pul-e-Khumri area of Afghanistan.
The video is accompanied by the caption, “افغانستان کے علاقے پل خمری میں گدھا مسجد میں داخل ہونے پر نمازیوں نے فائرنگ کرکے گدھا مار دیا۔
گدھے کے مالک نے نمازیوں پر فائرنگ کرکے 13 نمازی ھلاک کردیے۔
جواب میں نمازیوں نے بھاری اسلحے کے استعمال سے گدھے کے مالک کے گاوں پر حملہ کردیا 33 خواتین سمیت 38 افراد جانبحق ہوگئے۔ مجموعی طور 51 اموات
[A donkey was shot and killed by worshipers after it entered a mosque in Pul-e- Khumri area of Afghanistan. The owner of the donkey shot at the worshipers and killed 13 people. In response, the worshipers attacked the donkey owner’s village using heavy weapons and 38 people including 33 women were killed. A total of 51 deaths].”
The claim was also picked up by other pages including here, here, here, here and here.
Some comments on the post suggested that the video is from Pakistan. Soch Fact Check found the claim to be false after noticing a Pakistani flag and an advertisement for a local college in Karachi, The Concepts Collegiate at the 30-second and 1:15 mark, respectively.
To further investigate the claim, Soch Fact Check conducted keyword searches which led us to a video on YouTube titled, “Naval Colony Firing” published on September 10, 2022 by Karachi Post Network.
The video’s voice-over suggests that the incident occurred in the Naval Colony, Baldia Town area in Karachi when two groups exchanged fire over a money dispute.
IFCN-certified fact-checking website AFP also debunked the claim that the video in question is from Karachi, not Afghanistan. Karachi police confirmed to AFP that two rival groups clashed on 8 September 2022 in the Naval Colony district, and an investigation of the incident is underway. While two people were wounded in the firing exchange, nobody was killed.
Virality
Soch Fact Check conducted a CrowdTangle analysis for the thirty-day period leading up to 30 September 2022, using the following search term:
“افغانستان کے علاقے پل خمری میں گدھا مسجد میں داخل ہونے پر نمازیوں نے فائرنگ کرکے گدھا مار دیا۔
گدھے کے مالک نے نمازیوں پر فائرنگ کرکے 13 نمازی ھلاک کردیے۔
جواب میں نمازیوں نے بھاری اسلحے کے استعمال سے گدھے کے مالک کے گاوں پر حملہ کردیا 33 خواتین سمیت 38 افراد جانبحق ہوگئے۔ مجموعی طور 51 اموات
[A donkey was shot and killed by worshipers after it entered a mosque in Pul-e- Khumri area of Afghanistan. The owner of the donkey shot at the worshipers and killed 13 people. In response, the worshipers attacked the donkey owner’s village using heavy weapons and 38 people including 33 women were killed. A total of 51 deaths].”
The search term turned up 16,476 interactions across 561 posts on Facebook. The analysis revealed that Daily Khyber Tv’s post is performing almost 50 times better than other similar posts with 142,300 total views, 487 likes, 402 comments and
Conclusion: The video does not show gunmen opening fire at a crowd in the Pul-e-Khumri area of Afghanistan, reportedly killing 51 people over a dispute about a donkey. In fact, it is from an 8 September 2022 incident when two groups in Karachi, Pakistan clashed over a money dispute. The police said nobody was killed as a result of the firing.