Zee Hindustan ran video of Baloch girl with machine gun as ‘Panjshir, Afghanistan’

by Kinjal

On September 6, the Taliban claimed the complete seizure of Panjshir province, the last remaining region in Afghanistan resisting the Islamist extremist organisation’s control. Against this backdrop, several videos were shared on social media as visuals from the ground. Zee Hindustan tweeted a video on September 3 of a girl operating a machine gun claiming that she has taken up arms against the Taliban in Panjshir. (Archive link)

Zee Hindustan shared its broadcast on Facebook as well. (Archive link)

Fact-check

Alt News performed a reverse image search of a still from the video and found the original in a tweet dated January 28, 2020. However, the handle that tweeted it had not shared any details about the visuals.

Using a keyword search, we located the video on YouTube uploaded on January 26, 2020. It was described as scenes from the Balochistan province of Pakistan where a young Baloch girl was operating the machine gun.

Boomlive earlier wrote a fact-check on the video, stating that a few users had replied to the tweet saying that the song playing in the background was in Balochi.

The video of the young girl with a machine gun is old. Alt News Hindi had published a fact-check on Zee Hindustan’s report on September 4 but the channel is yet to take down the erroneous broadcast.

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About the Author

Kinjal Parmar holds a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology. However, her keen interest in journalism, drove her to pursue journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. At Alt News since 2019, she focuses on authentication of information which includes visual verification, media misreports, examining mis/disinformation across social media. She is the lead video producer at Alt News and manages social media accounts for the organization.