Claim: A Facebook video claims that it shows footage of a blast in the Police Lines neighbourhood of Pakistan’s northwestern province of Peshawar in January 2023.
Fact: The claim is false. The video was posted online as early as October 2021.
On 30 January 2023, a powerful blast ripped through a mosque in Peshawar’s Police Lines neighbourhood, killing at least 44 worshippers and leaving more than 150 wounded.
Shortly afterwards, a Facebook user posted a video allegedly depicting the site of the bombing. The video shows a large explosion after which a plume of fire and smoke can be seen touching the sky.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reserved image search video keyframes which led to a Pakistani news channel Samaa TV video report published on 21 October 2021. The video description read, “Samaa headlines 1 pm | Lahore mein Multan road per factory boiler phatne se aag lag gayi.” The same visuals as the false claim can be seen at the 2:43 mark of the video report.
Further investigation led to a video report posted on 22 October 2021 by the Indian news outlet Cobrapost. The video description read, “At least two labourers died as a boiler of beverages producing factory located at Lahore’s Multan Road exploded on Thursday. As per details, the fire engulfed the factory building after its boiler exploded. The factory and the nearby buildings have been badly affected due to the intensity of the blast.”
A screenshot of the video was also posted back in 2021 on Twitter here.
Soch Fact Check cannot independently verify the original source of the video, however it can be concluded that the clip does not show the recent blast in Peshawar.
Virality
The false video in the span of five hours received 3.5k views, 90 comments on Facebook.
On Twitter, the false claim was shared here, here, here and here.
The original video was linked to Lahore and was posted on TikTok was posted back in 2022 by a user @sohail_official20. However, it is not clear if it shows the boiler attack or if it was misleadingly associated with another incident.
Conclusion: A Facebook video does not show footage of a blast in the Police Lines neighbourhood of Pakistan’s northwestern province of Peshawar in January 2023. The video was posted online as early as two years before the recent attack.