An image of a huge crowd gathered on the streets is being shared to claim that it shows people raising Indian national flag in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
What have users said?: Those sharing the post have said, "BREAKING- Indian flags raised at a protest in PoK. Even people of PoK/GB want to to merge with India now.."
News outlets such as Asianet News and Punjab Kesari, too, shared reports about Indian flags being raised in PoK.
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Source: Asianet News/Screenshot)
What is the truth?: The image has been horizontally flipped and edited to add the Indian national flag. The original picture was captured near Green Valley Hotel in Rawakalot, PoK.
How did we find that out?: Using the help of Google Lens, we performed a reverse image search and found a repost shared by an X handle named 'Miraal Khan'.
The user said that the image was edited and shared a similar image as an evidence.
Is the viral image inverted?: A closer look at the viral image showed that the text written on the back of an autorickshaw appeared to be inverted.
The word seen on the autorickshaw is actually 'Sazgar', which is an automobile manufacturing company based in Pakistan.
All the letters of the word were inverted in the viral image. This indicated that the image was indeed horizontally flipped.
Other sources: Another round of reverse image search using Google Lens directed us to a post shared on an unverified Facebook handle called 'JKNSF (Jammu Kashmir National students Federation)'.
The post carried a similar image as the viral one, however, it did not show the Indian national flag.
There were other visuals from the protest in Rawalakot as well.
It was shared on 10 May and its caption when translated to English said, "#Rawalakot. On the call of the Jammu and Kashmir Joint Public Action Committee, a protest demonstration was held!."
When we compared the viral image to the one published on Facebook, we found that the former was not only flipped but also edited to add the Indian national flag.
Further, we found a video which showed similar visuals of the protest shared by an X premium user named 'Hamid Mir' on 10 May.
The user said that protestors in Muzaffarabad came out of their homes to demand tax-free electricity and subsidy on wheat.
We did not find anybody carrying or hoisting Indian flag.
Where is the video from?: We searched with Urdu translation of the keywords "rawalakot protests azad kashmir" on social media platforms to find more details about the incident.
This led us to a video from the same protest shared on Facebook, where the location was identified as 'Rawalakot Tourism Hotel'.
The video was too shared on 10 May.
On searching for tourism hotels in Rawalakot on Google Maps, we came across visuals of a hotel which looked similar to the one seen in the viral clip.
It was named 'Green Valley Hotel Rawalakot'.
When we compared keyframes from the viral video to a video available on Google Maps, we concluded that both of them show the same place.
Team WebQoof has reached out to local journalists to seek further clarification and this report will be updated as an when a response is received.
Conclusion: The viral image is flipped and has been digitally altered to add the Indian national flag in it.
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