Viral video of ink being thrown at Khawaja Asif is old from March 2018; has nothing to do with Afghan tensions

The iVerify Pakistan team investigated this content and determined that it is misleading.

To reach this conclusion, iVerify Pakistan conducted a keyword search to trace the original video.

Multiple Afghan users in posts on social media platform X on October 30, 2025, shared a video that allegedly showed Defence Minister Khawaja Asif being inked while talking against Afghanistan amid tensions with the neighbouring country. However, the clip is old from March 2018 and has nothing to do with the current issue.

The hostilities began earlier this month when an attack was launched on Pakistan from Afghanistan on the night of Oct 11. The attack had followed an allegation from the Taliban of airstrikes by Pakistan into Afghanistan — an accusation which Islamabad has neither confirmed nor denied.

For its part, Islamabad has long demanded that the Taliban stop terror groups from using its soil against Pakistan. Taliban, however, deny the allegation of allowing terrorists to operate from Afghan soil. Meanwhile, Pakistan continues to grapple with the issue of terrorism and has suffered multiple casualties among security forces in intelligence-based operations.

After the initial skirmish on Oct 11, multiple others took place along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Meanwhile, strikes by Islamabad also targeted Gul Bahadur group camps in Afghanistan.

Eventually, the two sides came together for dialogue in Doha, which resulted in a temporary ceasefire, as well as a commitment to reconvene in Istanbul to work on mechanisms for lasting peace and stability between the two countries. Last week, the second round of talks, which were being mediated by Turkiye and Qatar, between the two sides began in the Turkish capital.

But Information Minister Attaullah Tarar announced on Oct 29 that the latest round of talks between Islamabad and Kabul in Istanbul “failed to bring about any workable solution”. The defence minister also warned the Taliban regime that Islamabad would strike “deep into Afghanistan” if Afghan soil was used to launch terror attacks on Pakistan.

HOW IT STARTED

On Oct 30, a pro-Afghan account shared a video on X of Asif being inked during a press conference.

The caption of the post said: “In a press conference, ink was thrown at Pakistan’s military regime’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif by an individual. This happened while Khawaja was making strong statements about Afghanistan during the press conference”.

The post gained over 50,000 views.

The same video with similar claims began to be shared by 10am by different Afghan accounts on X, as can be seen here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, collectively gaining more than 36,000 views.

Notably, the posts did not provide any contextual details such as when or where the alleged incident occurred.

METHODOLOGY

A fact-check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its high virality and keen public interest in the matter amid the continuing tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan

A keyword search conducted to corroborate whether any such incident occurred recently yielded no news reports from credible mainstream outlets. Instead, a March 10, 2018, news report was found by English publication Dawn titled: “Khawaja Asif target of ink attack at PML-N convention”.

Sharing the same video, Dawn reported that Asif had ink thrown at him during a PML-N workers’ convention in Sialkot by an unidentified man.

It added that enraged PML-N workers had roughed up the ink-thrower before handing him over to the police, but Asif had pardoned the attacker instantly and called for his release.

The video showed that Asif was also not making any remarks about Afghanistan at the time.

The incident was also covered by other news outlets such as The Express Tribune, The Nation, Samaa News and Dunya News with the same context.

FACT-CHECK STATUS: FALSE

The claim that a viral video shows black ink being thrown at Defence Minister Khawaja Asif while talking against Afghanistan in a press conference is misleading.

The clip is of an old incident from March 2018 and has no relation to the current tensions with Afghanistan. It also does not show Asif talking against Afghanistan.