Old ‘Human Shield’ Video Shared as Recent Incident by Pak Scribe

The incident had reportedly taken place in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district in 2018 during a cordon and search op.

CLAIM

Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist shared a video with his 5.9 million followers on Twitter claiming it to be from Jammu and Kashmir.

The over-a-minute-long video shows four civilians sitting in front of a security vehicle surrounded by security forces armed with rifles. The security forces are in a verbal confrontation with a group of stone pelters, who can be heard accusing the security force of using the civilians as a ‘human shield’ to protect themselves.

Mir, in his tweet, has alleged these are the latest visuals from Jammu and Kashmir where the ‘Indian Army has used four detained Kashmiri boys as human shield to defeat some stone pelters.’

At the time of writing the story, the tweet had garnered over 2,700 retweets and 4,300 likes.

OLD VIDEO PASSED OFF AS A RECENT INCIDENT

On breaking down the video into several key frames using Invid Google Chrome extension, we came across a news report by Scroll, which was published in 2018 and it suggested that the video was reportedly from Samboora village in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district.

The police had, however, denied that any such incident took place. According to a report in Kashmir Reader, Awantipora police had said that they are yet to ascertain the authenticity of the video.

But Samboora’s residents and civilians had said that the incident took place Choonimal Mohalla of Samboora area, reported Scroll. According to them the security forces used four adult men and a minor as ‘human shield’ during a cordon and search operation.

The same report was aired by ABP news in 2018.

A similar incident came to light in 2017, when Major Leetul Gogoi made headlines after he tied a local Kashmiri to the front of a jeep to protect soldiers from stone-pelters.

The Quint has reached out to the security officials in Jammu and Kashmir and the copy will be updated if and when we receive a response.

PREVIOUS INSTANCES OF FAKE NEWS CIRCULATED BY PAKISTANIS

In the past two weeks, there have been multiple instances where Pakistani people have been caught peddling fake news. Here are a few:

1. Pakistan-based journalist Ameer Abbas shared a set of images and claimed that the Indian Army is killing ‘innocent and unarmed Kashmiris.’ However the images were found to be old and one of them was not even from India.

The Quint had debunked the story and had proved that how earlier, too, Pakistan had used the image on the left to tarnish India’s image and peddle lies.

2. A day after Section 144, prohibiting the assembly of groups of four or more people, was lifted in Jammu, Abdullah Gul, shared an old video claiming that it was from a recent violent activity in Kashmir. Abdullah is the son of General Hamid Gul who was the former chief of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

The same video was shared by Senator Rehman Malik. However, this too was found to be old. The video was from Kulgam in Kashmir but was a year old. It was from an encounter in which six civilians had lost their lives after they visited the encounter site and some explosive substance went off resulting in their death.

3. Another one was a story that could have had implications, both locally and internationally. Pakistan news organisations including The Express Tribune and Pakistan Today reported about Yasin Malik on a ‘slow death trial,’ quoting his wife.

However, there was no truth to this claim either. DG Prison, Tihar jail, where Malik is lodged, clarified that the rumour about death of Yasin Malik is completely false and that his health condition is “normal.”

(With inputs from Scroll and Kashmir Reader)

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