An old video of a physical fight erupting between two panelists during a debate on an Afghan TV channel is being shared with the false claim that it shows Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) panelists coming to blows in Manipur on live TV.
In Manipur — which has seen violence between the Meitei community and Kuki tribe since 3 May, 2023, leading to over 60,000 people getting displaced from their homes and death toll exceeding 200 according to government figures — elections for the two Lok Sabha seats will be held on 19 and 26 April, 2024.
In the 19-second video, two men can be seen arguing, after which they get into a physical fight punching each other and pushing one another around in a TV studio.
The video was posted on X by the handle @BackOmyGawd with the caption, “Big Fight On Live TV: BJP vs INC #Manipur”.
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BOOM also received the viral video on its WhatsApp helpline number inquiring about it.
Fact check
BOOM found that the viral video is from an Afghan TV channel — 1TV Kabul — on which a fight erupted between two panelists in June 2016 during a debate show. The viral video is not from Manipur showing BJP-Congress panelists getting into a fight on live TV as is being claimed.
We broke the video into key frames and ran a reverse image search using Google Lens. The search results showed that the viral video is old and from Afghanistan.
The search threw up a post on X with the same viral video posted on 15 February, 2019, with the caption, “Ladies & Gentlemen! Let’s enjoy Afghan TV talk show fight. They are lacking tolerance. #Afghanistan”.
We can see the same visuals and sequence of events in this video as in the viral video. Additionally, in this longer video — 30 seconds — we can also see the channel name 1TV Kabul mentioned.
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1TV Kabul is a privately owned commercial Afghan television channel that was launched in February 2010.
Taking a hint from this, we checked the official YouTube channel of 1TV Kabul and found the original video posted there on 10 June, 2016, with the caption which, when translated to English, reads, “Amaj Amaj — controversial discussion about Hekmatyar’s joining the Afghan government’s peace process”.
From the 25.15 minutes timestamp, we can see the same the fight breaking out between the two panelists as in the viral video.
The debate was on Hezb-e-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who had been designated a “global terrorist” by the US, joining the Afghan government peace talks. Hekmatyar in September 2016 formally signed a peace agreement with the then Afghan government led by President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani.
This story was originally published by Boom Live as part of the Shakti Collective. Apart from the headline, excerpt and introduction, this story has not been edited by ThePrint.
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