Fact-check: Claim that viral video shows young KP CM Sohail Afridi is false

A video and a photograph circulating on social media are being shared with the claim that they show an old recording of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi. The footage allegedly depicts a younger Afridi dancing while he was a member of the Insaf Student Federation (ISF), the student wing of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

The claim is incorrect. The man seen in the video is not the chief minister.

Claim

On January 13, a user on X, formerly known as Twitter, wrote: "I found an old ISF days video of Sohail Afridi."

Quoting this post, the user shared a 15-second-video clip that purportedly showed a young Afridi dancing at an event organised by the Insaf Student Federation.

The post was also accompanied by a photograph showing Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Minister for Higher Education Meena Khan Afridi standing alongside a man whom social media users claimed was Sohail Afridi.

At the time of writing, the video had been viewed more than 26,800 times and reposted over 66 times.

Fact

Neither the footage nor the picture features Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi.

The original video was recorded in 2016 and is available on the YouTube channel of Ali Mohsin, a performer in the Arifwala area of Punjab. The video can be viewed here.

Mohsin told Geo Fact Check that the event shown in the video was not affiliated with the PTI or its student wing. Instead, it was a private birthday gathering in his area, where political party banners had been placed in the background.

Regarding the photograph shared alongside the video, the real image was taken at Karachi airport on January 12, when Chief Minister Sohail Afridi was departing after a three-day visit. Afridi's face was later edited out, and an image of another man was inserted.

This was confirmed by Ikram Khatana, the deputy information secretary and social media head of PTI in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to Geo Fact Check, who also shared the original photograph from that day.

Verdict: The man dancing in the video is not Chief Minister KP Sohail Afridi.

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