Claim: A social media video claims that it shows police officers hitting Afghan women and arresting them.
Fact: The claim is false as the video is old, from 2021 Swat, KP; it is not related to the recent arrests of Afghan refugees.
On 17 September 2023, an X (formerly Twitter) account @ZawiaNews posted a video (archived) with a Pashto language caption:
له افغان کډوالو سره د پاکستاني پولیسو زور زیاتی. دغه ویډیو کې لیدل کېږي، چې پاکستاني پولیس افغان مېرمنې په لغتو وهي او د هغوی سپکاوی کوي.
Translated [Pakistani police force increased with Afghan refugees. In this video, it is seen that the Pakistani police are hitting Afghan women and insulting them.]
The 24-second video shows a policeman and a man without a police uniform manhandling two women and hitting them. The two women then sit in a police vehicle along with the policemen.
The video was shared after Pakistan’s law enforcement departments launched a crackdown against Afghan refugees in Sindh and Balochistan, reportedly amid tension on the Pak-Afghan border.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check conducted a reverse image search on Google Lens and Yandex. The results on Yandex showed a post by an account named Islamabadians on X (formerly Twitter) from 3 February 2021. The same video in better quality can be seen in the archived version of the post here. The caption reads, “Which law allows a man with no legal authority to beat a lady arrested in theft? Footage from Saidu Sharif, #Swat.”
The official account of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police was also tagged on the post. The same video was previously posted by another user, Ihtasham Afghan, here.
Further investigation with relevant keywords showed news reports by multiple media outlets.
The Express Tribune reported the same incident on 3 February 2021. The report reads that five police officers were booked in an FIR for brutally and publicly beating up three women allegedly arrested for robbery in Swat. It also states that the then Chief Minister of KP, Mahmood Khan, also took notice of the incident and ordered for the incident to be investigated thoroughly. Five police personnel, including three SHOs were arrested by IG KP Police at that time.
Daily Pakistan featured screenshots of the video and reported that action was taken against police personnel after the video of them beating up women went viral on social media.
Soch Fact Check could not independently verify if any actions were taken against the police officers but it is confirmed that the video is old and not related to recent arrests of Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
Virality
The video with the false claim received 24.7k views, 200 likes, and 152 reposts on X (formerly Twitter).
On Facebook, the video was shared here, here, here, and here between 17-24 September 2023.
Conclusion: The video of policemen beating up women is old, from 2021, and not related to recent arrests of Afghan refugees.
Background image in cover photo: Getty Images
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