Claim
An old video purportedly showing a group of people auctioning women openly on a street has revived with a false claim that it shows how 'real' Pathans treat women contrary to a Bollywood narrative. The old video has been revived amid boycott calls for Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone-starrer film Pathaan. The video is being shared with a Hindi caption that translates to, "Real Pathans are like this. Bollywood people make us confused." (Original Text in Hindi: असलि पठान ऐसे होते बॉलिवुड वाले तो हम को ऐसे ही पागल बनाते)
Fact
BOOM found that the video is of a street play by a Kurdish group called 'Compassion 4 Kurdistan' who tried to create an awareness about the slave trade practices in Iraq. According to a BBC report, the activists staged a mock auction of women at Leicester Square in London on October 14, 2014, to call out the atrocities by the terrorist organisation Islamic State. Newsweek also reported about the controversial protest met with some hostility during the three mock performances in London and in some cases, police had to secure actors from confrontations by pedestrians who were unaware about the event. The same video also went viral in 2021 with a false claim that it shows Taliban auctioning Afghan women. BOOM had debunked the video multiple times since 2018 when it was shared with different false claims.