Claim: A video shows PTI activist Sanam Javaid Khan dancing to an Indian song in a club in Peshawar with a drink in her hand.
Fact: The video was manipulated using artificial intelligence (AI) tools, with Javaid’s face swapped onto that of Indian influencer Yashika Mehta, who posted the original clip on 16 May 2025. The location is the Oscar Luxe Club in Noida.
On 25 April 2026, Facebook user ‘Pmln Abbottabad’ posted a video showing Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) activist Sanam Javaid Khan dancing to a song in a seemingly empty club with a drink in her hand. Text superimposed on the clip reads, “یوتھیوں کی باجی صنم جاوید کی ایک اور ویڈیو منظر عام پر [Another video of the Youthiyas’ sister Sanam Javaid has surfaced]”.
The user has now changed its name from ‘Pmln Abbottabad’ to ‘ورکر کی آواز’. The accompanying caption reads:
“بڑی خبر پشاور حیات آباد کے مشہور شیشہ کلب میں صنم جاوید کی وڈیو لیک جو سہیل کوچوان نے بنائی۔ C&W وزارت سے لوٹے گئے پیسوں میں سے آدھا یہ کوچوان روز شیشہ کلب میں آئس اور صنم پر لگاتا تھا
[Big news: Video leaked of Sanam Javaid in a famous sheesha [hookah] club of Hayatabad, Peshawar, filmed by Sohail Kochwan. This Kochwan used to spend half of the money looted from the C&W Ministry on ice and Sanam in the sheesha club everyday]”
Ice, the street name for crystal methamphetamine, is a stimulant drug with a high risk of addiction.
The word “Kochwan” is a slang in Pashto language that means womaniser; here, it refers to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, who was his predecessor Ali Amin Gandapur’s special assistant for Communication and Works (C&W) Department when Javaid was allegedly in hiding.
Afridi took over as KP CM on 15 October 2025. A week prior to his appointment, Javaid was allegedly “abducted” by unidentified individuals from near the Civil Officers’ Mess in Peshawar after her vehicle was reportedly intercepted, according to her friend, Advocate Hira Babar, the BBC reported.
Social media users have used the slang “Kochwan” over unconfirmed reports that Javaid was travelling in Afridi’s vehicle when it was intercepted. It was also employed because of unverified allegations about the two being in a relationship.
Before that, on 11 August 2025, the PTI activist was sentenced to five years in jail by an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in cases pertaining to the 9 May 2023 protests, which were sparked by the PTI founder and former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s first arrest.
According to a report in The Express Tribune, she was released from Kot Lakhpat Jail — officially called the Central Jail Lahore — in July 2025 after being arrested along with her husband, Professor Atiq, on 27 April.
On 11 May 2026, Javaid was shifted from the jail to Lahore’s Jinnah Hospital after her health deteriorated, with her husband saying she was brought in for eye and stomach problems.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check first searched if there were verified reports about Javaid by credible media outlets but did not find any.
A reverse search of keyframes from the viral video did not turn up exact matches except only rehashed posts on social media. Limiting the focus area to the top-left corner, which depicts flashing red lights on the ceiling, as well as the blurred signage reading “Oscar”, helped refine the results.
A further reverse search of the first image in the results led us to similar visuals in two videos online, the latter of which has the words “Oscar Lux night club…” in its description. Looking it up led us to the Oscar Luxe Club & Air Bar in Noida, India.
Screenshot of the reverse-image search results that we used for a further reverse-image search
A third clip from the reverse search results is from Oscar Luxe Club’s Instagram page itself.
For further verification, we searched Oscar Luxe Club’s Instagram page to check its interior, where we found a post (archive) from 30 May 2026 in which the flashing red lights on the ceiling, the brown sofas with shiny cover, and the “Oscar” signage in the background match the location in the viral video.
Images from Oscar Luxe Club’s Instagram post that contain matching elements, such as flashing red lights on the ceiling, brown sofas, and the “Oscar” signage in the background
To further corroborate our findings, we reached out to Srijit Das, a senior fact-checker at BOOM in India. “It’s a deepfake. And I can confirm that it is Oscar Luxe Club from Noida,” he told Soch Fact Check and provided a link to the original post.
The original video from 16 May 2025 features Indian influencer Yashika Mehta, who creates content related to fashion, beauty, and dance, according to her Instagram account.
Screenshots from the viral video (left) and the original posted by Yashika Mehta (right) for comparison
Soch Fact Check observed tell-tale signs of AI-generated content that are listed as follows:
- Fingers merged with the drink in her hand at the 0:01, 0:08, 0:11, and the 0:16 marks
- Distorted fingers at the 0:19 mark
- Overall blurry facial features at various points compared to clearer background
- Face swap visible at different points
- Hands merged with her neck at the 0:17 mark
Deepfake detection tools
To confirm that the clip was manipulated using AI tools, we ran the video through two deepfake detectors.
According to DeepFake-O-Meter, a tool developed by the University at Buffalo’s Media Forensics Lab (UB MDFL), the video is likely AI-generated, with four of its detectors showing probabilities of 99.9%, 97.7%, 77.1%, and 52.6%.
Moreover, Global Online Deepfake Detection System (GODDS) — a tool developed by Northwestern University’s Security & AI Lab (NSAIL) that uses a combination of various models along with human analysis to provide a holistic summary of the results — employed 22 deepfake detection algorithms for the visual content and 70 for the audio component, while two trained analysts also examined the clip.
All predictive models for the visual and audio content said the video “is likely to be fake”:
- The video is likely to be fake with a probability above 0.5, according to three of the 22 predictive models; it is likely to be fake with a probability below 0.5, according to the 19 other predictive models.
- The audio is likely to be fake with a probability above 0.5, according to 46 of the 70 predictive models; it is likely to be fake with a probability below 0.5, according to the 24 remaining predictive models.
According to GODDS’ human analysts, the video contains “several indicators” that show it may be artificially manipulated. For example:
- 0:00-0:20: appears to have 6 fingers
- 0:12-0:13: weird finger movement
- 0:14: finger appears to float
- 0:18: hand appears abnormally stretched; facial features are visually distorted
“The artefacts are largely obscured by poor video quality, despite the majority of the video’s features remaining detailed and clear. It is difficult to discern possible artefact manipulation because of the poor video quality. It is plausibly explainable by other factors such as motion blur as well,” the analysts noted.
They further added, “The content uploader, ‘Pmln Abbottabad’, has posted numerous ‘breaking news’ claims on Facebook without independent corroboration or cross-references. This pattern raises concern about the account’s reliability. The alleged subject [Sanam Javaid Khan] has previously been the target of manipulated media. This video could be part of a larger pattern of misinformation.”
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that the video was manipulated using AI tools.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the video posted multiple times on Facebook and Instagram.
It was also shared on X (formerly Twitter) not only in April 2026 but in November 2025 as well.
One of the X users, @PakVocals, whose November 2025 post gained over 148,400 views, has posted multiple deepfake videos in the past, all of which has been debunked by Soch Fact Check.
Conclusion: The video is AI-manipulated, with Javaid’s face swapped onto that of Indian influencer Yashika Mehta, who posted the original clip on 16 May 2025. The location is the Oscar Luxe Club in Noida, India.
Background image in cover photo: sanamjavaidkhan
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