Video of Pak Scholar Shared as 'Taliban Chief Secy Talking About RSS'

The man speaking in the video is Islamic scholar Khalid Mehmood Abbasi and is not associated with the Taliban.

A video of a man, who has been misidentified as the chief secretary of the Taliban, is doing the rounds on social media with a claim that the group, which has now formed the government in Afghanistan, is talking about the 'power of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)'.

However, we found that the man in the video is an Islamic scholar named Khalid Mehmood Abbasi from Islamabad, Pakistan who isn't affiliated with the Taliban.

CLAIM

The video is being shared with a claim that reads: "Taliban accepted that RSS and BJP are more powerful in India, when BJP will be in India no country can attack India. If India is to be attacked, then first remove BJP. Watch this video to see what Taliban chief secretary said. (sic)"

Several social media users have shared the video and the archived links can be seen here, here, and here.

We also received several queries about the video on our WhatsApp tipline.

WHAT WE FOUND

We heard the 5:29 minute-long video and saw one logo which read as 'NWAA Studios'.

Next, we searched on Google and found one YouTube page with the same name. We then searched on their page with relevant keywords and found the longer version of the video on their YouTube page published on 6 August 2020.

The man was identified as Khalid Mehmood Abbasi and in the video the recording date was mentioned as 1 March 2019.

You can hear the part that is viral from 0:48 seconds-6:03 minutes.

We found his details on his official Facebook page, which identified him as an Islamic scholar. Speaking to The Quint over phone, Abbasi denied any affiliation with the Taliban and confirmed that the video was old.

"This is a completely false statement, that I am the chief secretary of Taliban. The Taliban has come to power in Afghanistan now, but part of the clip has been taken out from the video which is about 1.5 years old. I have no links with the Taliban or any political party."

Khalid Mehmood Abbasi, Islamic scholar

We also found that Khalid Abbasi is associated with an organisation named Shubban ul Muslimeen. When asked about this, he confirmed the links, adding that it is not a political party.

Clearly, a video an Islamic scholar from Pakistan is being circulated as the chief secretary of Taliban.

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