Claim: A video shows the Joint Awami Action Committee’s (JAAC) “anarchic elements” opening direct fire at security personnel standing near police vehicles on a street in Mirpur, a city in Pakistan-administered Kashmir amid violent protests.
Fact: The video was generated using artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
On 29 July 2026, multiple social media users shared a video — which has apparently been shot from a mobile phone — showing security personnel fleeing police vehicles amid rapid firing and commotion in Mirpur, a city in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
The caption accompanying the posts reads:
“میرپور میں گولی کس نے چلائی؟ موبائل فون سے بننے والی اہم ویڈیو نے حقیقت بے نقاب کر دی۔ ویڈیو میں واضح طور پر دیکھا جا سکتا ہے کہ ایکشن کمیٹی کے مشتعل عناصر پولیس اہلکاروں پر براہِ راست فائرنگ کر رہے ہیں، جبکہ پولیس اہلکار اپنی جان بچانے کے لیے گاڑیوں کی آڑ لینے پر مجبور نظر آتے ہیں۔
[Who fired the shots in Mirpur? A crucial video captured on a mobile phone has exposed the truth. The video clearly shows the anarchic elements of the [Joint Awami] Action Committee firing directly at the police personnel, while the police officers are seen taking cover behind vehicles to save their lives.]”
Screenshot of the viral video
Unrest, violence in Kashmir
Ahead of the general elections in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, also known as Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), that were boycotted by the opposition parties, the region erupted in severe unrest and deadly clashes.
The elections were originally scheduled to take place in one round on 27 July but later divided into three phases owing to security concerns. The successive polls were nonetheless marred by sporadic instances of violence. The third one is scheduled for 10 August.
Security forces imposed a significant crackdown on the protests, led by the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), that were sparked by long-held political and economic grievances.
The JAAC has alleged that at least 31 of its protesters have been killed and 400 injured amid the clashes, Arab News reported. Umar Nazir Kashmiri, a core member of the group, accused the government of opening “fire on unarmed demonstrators” as they marched toward Muzaffarabad, it added.
Since the beginning of the unrest in June, “more than 45 people have been killed and hundreds injured”, according to Al Jazeera.
Read our background on the clashes in Pakistan-administered Kashmir here.
A 29 July report by Dawn quoted AJK Police spokesperson, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Riaz Mughal, as saying, “In 2026 only, 26 of our personnel were martyred, while 157 were seriously injured, and 629 faced minor injuries.” JAAC had snipers amongst them and that almost 70% of the protesters were “criminals”, he alleged.
Rights organisations like Amnesty International and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) reported heavy use of lethal force against demonstrators, alongside communication and Internet blackouts across major areas, such as Mirpur and Rawalakot.
On 2 August, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s External Publicity (EP) Wing issued “Foreign Media Facilitation Guidelines, 2026.”
The guidelines require “all foreign or international print, electronic, and digital media, including social media & web based platforms”, to register themselves with the EP Wing and obtain a no-objection “official assignment especially for the work outside Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi”. The ministry said the accreditation may be suspended or cancelled if it “acts against the ideology, sovereignty, security, or public order of Pakistan”, among other reasons.
See a report by Soch Fact Check’s sister organisation, Soch Videos, on the new guidelines here.
The same day, the ministry posted an advisory on X (formerly Twitter), saying Al Jazeera engaged in “selective reporting” and “yellow journalism” and that it “sought to misrepresent the AJK elections and the voting process”. It added that the international media outlet’s news stories “confirm(ed) the agenda of external actors with vested interests”.
Al Jazeera’s website is now inaccessible in Pakistan; however, its social media channels can be viewed without any issues.
Amnesty also urged the Pakistani government to “lift communications blackout” and “allow media and independent observers into the area” in order to conduct an “independent verification of the full extent of the situation on the ground”.
The UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk has called for “prompt, thorough and impartial investigations into all deaths that have occurred due to the unrest, both amongst protesters and members of security forces”, according to spokesperson Jeremy Laurence.
The BBC said there was an atmosphere of fear among the population and that the vehicles and property of the candidates contesting the AJK elections “have been set on fire, while some candidates were subjected to violence”, while attributing the blame to the JAAC.
On the other hand, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar accused India of providing “funds and instructions” for the protests, The Guardian reported.
According to The Express Tribune, the federal and AJK governments have claimed that militants — especially “Fitna al-Khawarij” — have infiltrated the demonstrations in the region, that weapons were recovered from protesters, and that “they had opened fire on security forces”.
“Fitna al-Khawarij” is a term the government uses to refer to the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban.
Minister of State for Interior Tallal Chaudhry spoke alongside Tarar during the 28 July press conference, saying that those participating in the demonstrations would not be considered “protesters but rioters” and urging citizens to stay away and safe from the government crackdown.
Chaudhry also promised “ all-out support to [the] AJK government for maintaining peace and order”, according to the state-run Radio Pakistan.
On 30 July, the AJK Assembly adopted a formal resolution calling for the immediate establishment of an independent, impartial Truth Commission to “investigate the recent unrest, examine all deaths, injuries and property losses, and recommend relief and reforms”.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse-searched keyframes from the viral video but did not find any relevant results, apart from posts regurgitating the claim.
We decided to run the video through different AI detection tools, such as Hive Detect and NVIDIA Synthetic Video Detector.
According to Hive Detect’s results, the sample is 98.9% likely to be an AI-generated video; specifically between the one- and two-second marks and the four- and nine-second marks, the tool identified “seedance2,” “veo3,” and “gemini3” as the sources used to produce the synthetic content.
Results from Hive Detect
NVIDIA Synthetic Video Detector labelled the video as “real”, with a synthetic score of 22.4%, which is “lower than threshold (30%), meaning it’s likely a real video”. However, at the 5.05-second mark — shown in the graph below — the probability is the highest at 95.1%.
Results from NVIDIA Synthetic Video Detector
We then checked if the viral video contains SynthID, an imperceptible watermark embedded in all content generated by Google’s AI tools. This can be done through a dedicated detection tool, which currently works through Gemini in Pakistan.
The results showed Synth ID was detected in the first 10 seconds of the 15-second clip, proving that most, if not all, of the video “made with Google AI”.
Results from SynthID Detector
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that the video is AI-generated.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the video shared over 20 times on Facebook, eight times on Instagram, and twice on Threads.
On X, the video gained 86,000 views across five posts.
Conclusion: The video is AI-generated.
Background image in cover photo: RawalakotCommunity
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