Following the terrorist attack in Pahalgam on 22 April 2025, which claimed the lives of 25 Indian and one Nepali citizen, the Indian Armed Forces launched ‘Operation Sindoor’ in the early hours of 07 May 2025. The Indian government stated that the operation targeted terrorist infrastructure at nine locations across Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, emphasising that no Pakistani military installations were struck. It described the strikes as focused, measured, and non-escalatory. Citing military sources, media reports indicated that at least 80 terrorists were killed during the operation. However, Pakistan stated that at least 26 civilians were killed and 46 others injured in the missile strikes. In response, cross-border shelling by Pakistani forces reportedly led to the deaths of at least nine civilians and injuries to 38 others in Jammu and Kashmir.
In this context, social media is abuzz with an alleged video (here, here, and here) of Pakistanis queuing up at their banks to withdraw money ‘before their banks collapse during the war with Bharat.’ In this video, we can see multiple clips in which people are standing in front of various banks and ATMs. ABP Live also posted screenshots from this video on YouTube and claimed that they show Pakistanis lining up outside the banks in Pakistan to withdraw money, and that this is the side effect of the fear of attack from India. We will fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: Amidst the rising tensions between India and Pakistan in 2025, this video shows Pakistani citizens queuing up in front of banks to withdraw money.
Fact: This is an edited video that contains visuals from an old video of 2021 showing Afghans lining up in front of banks in Kabul, Afghanistan to withdraw money. Other short clips of Pakistani signboards were added to the 2021 video to make it look like a video is from Pakistan. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To check the veracity of the viral claim, we performed a reverse image search on a few keyframes from the viral video. This search led us to an August 2021 video report posted by ‘TRT World’ on YouTube. This contained the visuals seen in the viral video.
As per the title and the description of the video, it shows Afghans in Kabul, Afghanistan, rushing to the banks to withdraw money, fearing the Taliban may impose restrictions. The description of the video also stated that the Taliban ordered banks to reopen, but imposed a weekly $200 limit on cash withdrawals.
The viral video contains clips from this video and two additional shots of the sign boards of Pakistani Banks (one board is partially visible and the other one shows the State Bank of Pakistan), one at 4 seconds and the other at 17 seconds. In other words, the 2021 video of Afghans withdrawing cash at their banks was edited with two shots of Pakistani Banks (which we could not find) to share it as recent visuals from Pakistan. This makes it clear that the video is from 2021 and unrelated to the recent incidents.
To learn more about this video, we performed a keyword search on the internet and found news reports (here and here) on this from August 2021. This incident happened after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan after the US withdrew its troops from Afghanistan.
Reportedly, the banks were closed (here and here) in fear that the Taliban’s takeover may lead to looting. However, they were opened later, which led to people rushing to the banks to withdraw cash. Additionally, we performed a keyword search to check about incidents of Pakistani citizens queuing up in front of banks to withdraw money, which did not yield any credible news reports.
To sum up, an old and unrelated video from 2021 is being shared as visuals of Pakistanis queuing up at banks to withdraw money.
