Claim: A video shows people from Bannu, KP, walking to join the PTI’s Long March to Islamabad.
Fact: The video is old and unrelated to the PTI’s 2026 Long March.
On 4 October 2026, several social media accounts shared a video that they claimed shows supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) from Bannu in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province walking to join a “Long March” to demand the release of the party’s founder and incarcerated former Prime Minister, Imran Khan.
Screenshot of one of the viral Facebook posts
The accompanying caption reads:
“بنوں سے بہت بڑا کافلا منزل کی جانب رواں دھواں 🔥
[A massive caravan from Bannu is making its way toward the destination. 🔥]”
PTI’s Long March
On 25 September 2026, the PTI announced that it was postponing its long-planned protest — originally set to take place on 27 September — to 4 October. The “Long March” was aimed at demanding the release of former PM Imran Khan from prison, where he has been incarcerated since August 2023 over various charges.
At the time, the government took major steps to restrict the scheduled protest that was deemed disruptive and mishandled by some commentators. In addition, there was a wave of preventive arrests targeting PTI’s organisers and associated figures, including Khan’s sisters.
Amnesty International termed the arrests a “flagrant violation of human rights.”
On 2 October, the Pakistan Army’s top brass issued a warning that “any attempt to cause agitation or create [a] 9 May-like situation, on any pretext whatsoever, will be dealt with decisive force and rule of law, without hesitation and discrimination”, according to a statement issued by its media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), following the 277th Corps Commanders’ Conference.
At the same time, representatives from the federal government and the PTI met to discuss an alternate way forward on 2 and 3 October but the talks ended in a deadlock.
On 4 October, Afridi finally launched the “Long March” from southern KP. In the following days, the participants progressed through the outskirts of Peshawar before travelling through Kohat and Darra Adam Khel.
By 8 October, as the rally reached Attock and Khairabad borders, authorities blocked entryways to the country’s capital, Islamabad. The intended route for the march was reportedly changed several times since it was launched.
Law enforcement agencies intensified their defensive posture around the federal capital and Rawalpindi, with Section 144 imposed in Islamabad and Punjab.
On 11 October, Section 144 was also imposed in Karachi for 10 days, effective immediately.
KP gov’t suspended, emergency imposed
However, on 11 October, President Asif Ali Zardari signed a summary to suspend the KP government and impose an emergency in the province, paving the way for governor’s rule, following “decisions by the Federal Cabinet, the Prime Minister [Shehbaz Sharif’s] advice, reports from relevant agencies regarding the law-and-order situation, and the failure of negotiations” with the Centre.
The federal government’s move came amid what it claimed was the KP administration’s “deliberate disengagement from the fight against terrorism”, as well as its failure “to tackle Islamist militancy”, a move that senior PTI leader Zulfiqar ‘Zulfi’ Bukhari alleged was “more of a coup disguised as emergency”.
The PTI also announced that some of its leaders, including Afridi and the party’s KP president, Junaid Akbar, “had been taken into custody”.
The same day, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) cautioned that an emergency and governor’s rule in KP “risks further deepening political tensions and undermining democratic processes”.
On 12 October, State Interior Minister Tallal Chaudhry said the now-dysfunctional CM and some members of his Cabinet were “taken into preventive custody”, Geo News and Reuters reported.
The same day, Dawn quoted a senior police official as saying that “eight people — including Afridi, MNA Junaid Akbar and assembly speaker Babar Saleem Swati — had been taken into ‘preventative custody’”.
A day later, Afridi’s brother Muhammad Aamir petitioned the Peshawar High Court (PHC) “seeking his immediate recovery, arguing that his alleged abduction and continued detention violated his fundamental rights and demanding an independent judicial inquiry into his disappearance”, The Express Tribune reported.
Also on 13 October, state-run Pakistan TV quoted Information Minister Attaullah Tarar as saying that there was “credible evidence [establishing] the PTI’s contact with TTP”, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, a terrorist group also known as the Pakistani Taliban.
The Express Tribune reported him asking, “How could a government, which is mandated to protect the lives of people and to maintain law and order in a province, be hand in glove with terrorists to promote terrorist activities?”
Tarar’s remarks echo his previous statement from 10 October when he alleged that the PTI is the TTP’s “B-team” and that it does “not condemn terrorists”.
On 14 October, Geo News reported citing information available with the outlet that the now-dysfunctional KP CM was being held “at an undisclosed location” after the door to a locked room he was alone in “was broken open and two officers entered”.
“The officers remained with Afridi for around 30 to 40 minutes and held a conversation with him in a cordial atmosphere. Afridi was reportedly anxious at the time. … He was not handcuffed and no inappropriate treatment was reported during the process,” the publication added.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse-searched keyframes from the viral video and found it to be old and unrelated.
We found two matching videos from 20 February and 7 September 2024. The latter includes text, which, when translated from Urdu to English, reads: “People from across the country have already started setting out for the Islamabad rally; a people’s revolution.”
We also came across a video, apparently shot by a different individual, but from the exact location and an almost similar angle. It was shared on TikTok on 21 October 2022, which coincides with the PTI’s Haqeeqi Azadi March the same year.
Screenshots from the viral video (L), the matching Facebook clip from 20 February 2024 (C), and the TikTok post from 21 October 2022 (R)
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that the exact video can be traced back to at least 2024 and is unrelated to the PTI’s Long March to Islamabad this month.
Virality
The video was shared dozens of times on different social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok.
Conclusion: The video is old and unrelated to the PTI’s October 2026 Long March.
Background image in cover photo: PTIOfficial
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