No, 13 Sniffer Dogs Were Not Killed in the Pulwama Terror Attack

CLAIM

A viral message on social media claims that along with the 40 CRPF jawans who were martyred in the Pulwama terror attack on 14 February, 13 sniffer dogs too lost their lives.

Some more fighters died that day? Ones that we always miss to address.

Posted by Kalpesh Patel on Saturday, February 16, 2019

The message has gained quite some traction on social media.

13 Sniffer dogs also died in the #Pulwama attack . May their Souls rest in Peace. And Pakistani creeps rot in hell

— Sumedha Iyer (@sumeidha) February 17, 2019

While we mourn the martyrdom of our soldiers but among them we forgot them also!! The 13 sniffer dogs who got martyrdom. RIP silent soldiers. @narendramodi @HMOIndia @majorgauravarya @TajinderBagga @adgpi @AskAnshul @crpfindia pic.twitter.com/MI2P7LIshE

— Achinta Bhattacharje (@achintabhatt89) February 16, 2019

Praying for the 13 sniffer dogs who died along with the soldiers in the terrorist attack!

Rest in peace brave souls! Thank you for protecting us, selflessly, relentlessly!! 🙏

— Totapari (@CoffeeNChirps) February 16, 2019

View this post on Instagram

Along with the 40 #martyred soldiers of the #indianarmy at #pulwamaattack 13 #indian sniffer #dogs were martyred as well. That raises the count to 53. #respect to these #precious souls who will go #faceless. #narendramodi #modiforpm2019 #modi

A post shared by Dhanlaxmi Goyal (@dhanlaxmigoyal) on Feb 16, 2019 at 7:52pm PST

TRUE OR FALSE?

Well, the claim is false. A CRPF official confirmed to The Quint that no sniffer dogs were killed in the attack. “There were no sniffer dogs, this is fake news. The convoy was transporting only jawans,” the official said.

Meanwhile, the original post, put up by one Anshuu S Vaswani has also been deleted.

WHAT HAPPENED IN PULWAMA

A CRPF convoy of 78 vehicles, carrying 2,547 CRPF personnel, was attacked at 2:03 pm at Awantipora in J&K’s Pulwama district on Thursday, 14 February. Dar, allegedly driving a Mahindra Scorpio carrying explosives, rammed into the convoy.

A CRPF official told The Quint that the moment the blast took place, terrorists opened fired on the convoy. Two buses were the worst hit, one of them was carrying 39 personnel.

While Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has said that a “strong reply” will be given to “Pakistan-backed Jaish-e-Mohammad which has claimed responsibility, Pakistan, in response, has said that it “strongly rejected any insinuation” by the Indian media and government that sought to link the attack to them “without investigation.”

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