A video showing soldiers brawling near snow-clad mountains has gone viral amid reports of a clash between China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) and Indian soldiers in Arunachal Pradesh's Tawang Sector on 9 December, which has reportedly led to injuries on both the sides.
The claim: Those sharing the video claimed that it showed visuals from the recent clash. Some others added that 150 Indian soldiers overpowered 300 PLA troops in Tawang.
(Archives of more such posts can be found here and here.)
The truth: The video of the skirmish has been on the internet since at least June 2020. It was earlier shared in the backdrop of the Galwan clash in which 20 Indian soldier were killed.
How did we find that out: We used the InVID WeVerify Google Chrome Extension to extract keyframes from the viral video and conducted a reverse image search on some of them using Yandex search engine.
While going through the results, we came across the video posted on YouTube in June 2020 with a caption, "Indian army smashing chinese at sikkim border 2020."
Taking a cue from that, we conducted a keyword search and found news reports that carried the video.
What happened in Tawang?: On 9 December, PLA troops clashed with Indian soldiers in Arunachal Pradesh's Tawang Sector, leading to personnel of both sides sustaining minor injuries.
Talking in parliament about the clash, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that "no Indian troops had been killed" and the issue had been diplomatically taken up with China.
Conclusion: Clearly, the video is old. Although we have not been able to independently verify if it is from the 2020 Galwan clash but the fact that it can be traced back to 2020 makes it clear that it is not of the recent clash.
(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9643651818, or e-mail it to us at webqoof@thequint.com and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)