Fact-check: Video doesn't show Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement training youth for combat

Some social media users believe that a video shows the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), a prominent rights group recently banned by the Pakistani government, training young people to fight against law enforcement agencies.

The claim is false.

Claim

On October 8, a user on X (formerly Twitter) shared a video over one minute long, captioning it: “PTM [Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement] is training and preparing Pakhtun youth to fight against the security forces.” This post had been viewed over 94,500 times, reposted about 500 times, and liked over 1,000 times at the time of writing.

Similar claims were also shared here, here and here.

Fact

The video in question actually shows young men warming up ahead of a gathering, called the Pashtun Qaumi Jirga, held on October 11 to discuss concerns of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s residents.

Kamran Khan, a PTM leader in Islamabad, told Geo Fact Check over the phone that the young men seen in the video were exercising before they were assigned various responsibilities at the three-day event. Their tasks included security, providing water, and managing parking.

Eid-u-Rehman Wazir, who headed security arrangements at the event, confirmed the same.

This was also corroborated by Rasool Dawar, Geo Television's journalist in Peshawar who covered the Jirga. “These young men were doing PT [physical training] to record a short clip for social media,” Dawar told Geo Fact Check. “There is no training [for combat] happening here.”

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