Title: No, this is not a photo of Hazara home burned in Behsud…

Along with a picture of a burning house some social media users claimed that the Taliban have set people’s houses on fire in Behsud district of Maidan Wardak province.

The photo shared since Nov 8, is claimed to be of houses set on fire by Taliban in Behsud. You can see a tweet making this claim below:

Taliban have set Hazara residential properties in #Behsud on fire.
This is clearly act of terrorism and act genocide without a doubt.
This madness must come to an end.
Setting Hazara homes on fire, and standing by, celebrating and watching.#StopHazaraGenocide pic.twitter.com/IrVPxTgWmD

— Hossein 🌲 (@Hossein34405379) November 7, 2022

Archived-Tweet

Factcrescendo’s findings show that users have published a picture of a burnt house of a person accused of murder. Based on the findings, this person’s house was set on fire by the residents of Samkanai district of Paktia province.

Fact Check

Using image search engines, Factcrescendo found that this image is not from Behsud district, but from Samkanai district of Paktia province.

Salam Watandar has published this image on Friday, October 28, 2022. Along with this picture, they reported that the residents of Samkanai district of Paktia set fire to the house of a person accused of murder.

In this report, the spokesperson of the Paktia Security Command is quoted saying that the body of a person named Dawood jan was found hanging from a tree after several days of disappearance.

It was reported that the local residents set fire to the house of alleged killer of Dawood Jan on the same day (Friday, Oct 28) in response to his murder. Reports state further that the alleged murderer is the son of the victim’s uncle.

Local residents say that the reason for this murder was due to property issues.

It is a custom in Paktia that if a person kills a member of his family because of his inheritance, the local residents burn the murderer’s house.

In this report, another picture of the burnt house has been published as well. In the description of the published pictures, Salam Watandar said that these pictures were sent to the media. 

SWN-Report / Archived-Link

The UFUQ news agency published this photo on its website 3 weeks ago. This media also reported that residents of Samkanai district of Paktia province set fire to the house of a person accused of murder. 

Ufuq News / Archived-Link

Conclusion

Based on the findings, we conclude that the users have shared the image of a house set on fire in Samkanai district of Paktia as a house set on fire by Taliban in Behsud. We found that the local residents set fire to the house of a man accused of murder according to their long-standing custom.