Indo-US Joint Military Exercise Shared as ‘Encounter in Kashmir’
A message circulated on Twitter claims that the video shows a ‘live encounter in Kashmir’.
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The Centre revoked Article 370, which gives a special status to Jammu and Kashmir on Monday, 5 August, through a Presidential Order. Home Minister Amit Shah has also moved a Bill to bifurcate the state into two union territories – Jammu & Kashmir as one and Ladakh as the other.
The revocation of Article 370 drew sharp criticism from leaders, with Vice President of National Conference and former J&K CM Omar Abdullah saying that the move will have “far-reaching and dangerous consequences.”
(Catch all the live updates on Kashmir unrest here.)
CLAIM
Now a video which shows Army men carrying out a cordon and search operation in a village is being circulated on Twitter and YouTube with the claim that the visuals show a ‘Live encounter in Kashmir’.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The claim is completely false. The visuals don’t show a live encounter in Kashmir but show an Indo-US joint military exercise which was conducted at a village called Chaubattia in Uttrakhand in 2016.
The news was covered by DD news, and the viral video uses a portion of their reportage for peddling fake news.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT?
On breaking the video into several keyframes, we came across a video uploaded by ‘Clipzui’ with the headline ‘Know how Indian Army carries out search operations in Kashmir valley’.
We searched for the video on DD News’ Youtube channel with the same headline and found out that the news was covered by their defence correspondent Nandita Dagar in 2016.
The news shows how the security forces carry out cordon and search in Jammu and Kashmir when they receive inputs that terrorists are hiding in different houses in the village.
Dagar explains that the video the drill is happening in a village called Chaubattia. To know more about the drill, we looked up the internet and came across a picture of Dagar (from the same location and same clothes) which stated that she reported on the Indo-US Yudh Abhyas 2016.
The pictures and details of Indo-US Yudh Abhyas 2016 are available on ADGPI - Indian Army Facebook page and there is a press release from the Ministry of Defence on the PIB website.
“Company strength army personnel from USA and an equal number of Indian soldiers are taking part in the two weeks long joint training exercise that will see them hone their tactical and technical skills in countering insurgency and terrorism in a UN Peace Keeping scenario involving a combined deployment at a Brigade level,” the press release read.
RED FLAGS IN THE VIRAL MESSAGE
- The video clipping has the logo of DD news. If a situation like this had arisen, there would have been some alert and the media would have certainly covered it given the precarious situation in Kashmir.
- Secondly, if an encounter was taking place, a reporter would not have been allowed to stand in the same area where the encounter took place.
- The audio was morphed and the video was carefully clipped to remove context.
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