Fact Check – This of army destroying mobile phones and liquor bottles is from Pakistan, not Afghanistan

Vishvas News (Guwahati) || Recently a video has gone viral on various social media platforms and WhatsApp. The video shows a large number of army men destroying a large number of mobile phones and various electronic items. Social media users are claiming that it is a scene from Taliban-occupied Afghanistan. The viral claim says that mobile phones are banned in Afghanistan. Everyone has to voluntarily hand over their mobile phones to the Taliban army, after which if a citizen is caught with a mobile phone, his death is inevitable; This is a new law.

Vishvas News investigated the claim and found it to be wrong. This is a video of Pakistan’s excise department destroying various illegal items.

What is this viral post?

Facebook User Diptendu Biswas uploaded this video on February 9, 2022 and wrote – তাদের নিয়ে যাওয়া হউক আফগানিস্তানে যারা তালেবান শাসন পছন্দ করে, আফগানিস্তানে এখন মোবাইল ফোন নিষিদ্ধ। সবাইকে স্বেচ্ছায় তাদের মোবাইলগুলো তালেবান সেনা কর্মকর্তাদের কাছে হস্তান্তর করতে হবে। এর পর যে কাউকে মোবাইলসহ পাওয়া গেলে মৃত্যুদণ্ড হবে, এটাই আফগানিস্তানের নতুন আইন।

(English Translation – Take them to Afghanistan who prefers Taliban rule, mobile phones are now banned in Afghanistan. Everyone must voluntarily hand over their mobile phones to Taliban military officers. Next, anyone found with a mobile phone will be executed, this is Afghanistan’s new law.)

Many other social media users shared this video with similar claims. It has gone viral even in many WhatsApp groups. You can view the archive link of the post by clicking here.

Investigation

Vishvas News started investigating and uploaded this video on the InVID tool to find out the source of this viral video and took out its screengrabs. One of these photos shows an insignia of Pakistan on the Uniform of a soldier seen in the video. You can see that in the photo below.

Taking clues from here we search the keyframes of this video with appropriate keywords. We found this video on many Pakistani YouTube channels confirming that this video is not from Pakistan.

We found a video on the channel Real Karachi on 29 December 202. The viral clip appears from the 37 seconds to 48 seconds mark. The video can be viewed by clicking here.

In addition, another YouTube channel called Dr. Essa Laboratory & Diagnostic Centre Official also uploaded this video on their respective youtube channels. The description read “Pakistan Customs Destruction Ceremony on 30 December 2021”. Here too a portion of this viral video is clearly visible. The video can be viewed by clicking here.

Our investigation revealed that this video is from Pakistan.

We then shared this video with Siddharth Shankar Deka, senior deputy editor of Assam’s leading newspaper Dainik Assam’s International Page. Journalist Deka said reports of the mobile ban in different parts of Afghanistan are coming out from time to time but reports of such mass destruction of such items in public are false.

We scanned the profile of the user who shared this post. The man Diptendu Biswas Ran is a resident of Teliamura.