Video of Indian Army Soldiers Collapsing Shared With Anti-Vaccine Narrative

The video shows Indian soldiers collapsing during an endurance run near Pathankot due to heat and exhaustion.

A video, which shows some soldiers of the Indian Army collapsing on the floor as others try to revive them, is being shared on social media with the claim that the men were administered a COVID-19 vaccine, following which a few of them had suffered a heart attack and lost their lives.

The anti-vaccine narrative video is being shared on Facebook and WhatsApp.

However, we found that the video is from Mamun military station near Pathankot. As per reports, one solider had died, four were hospitalised during an endurance run on 21 August due to "severe weather conditions". Many of the soldiers had collapsed.

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CLAIM

The 21-second long video is being shared with a message in Hindi which goes on to say that the soldiers were given the COVID-19 vaccine and after that when they ran, they collapsed and a few suffered heart attacks.

The Quint received queries about the same video on its tipline number. You can view some archived versions of the online posts here, here, and here.

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WHAT WE FOUND

We fragmented the video into multiple keyframes and conducting a reverse image search which led us to a tweet by senior journalist Man Aman Singh Chhina from 21 August which carried the same video.

The tweet carried Army's statement on the incident and mentioned, "In an organised, supervised and monitored training activity near Pathankot, due to severe weather conditions, there has been one fatal casualty & few individuals admitted in MH Pathankot. (sic)"

Army statement on 9 Corps Recce Troop Competition:
In an organised, supervised and monitored training activity near Pathankot, due to severe weather conditions, there has been one fatal casualty & few individuals admitted in MH Pathankot. Requisite medical care being provided. pic.twitter.com/f8dliitjoB

— Man Aman Singh Chhina (@manaman_chhina) August 21, 2021

We also came across a report by Chhina on The Indian Express which stated that the endurance run was going on for 72 hours and a 10km leg run with full load of weapons was undertaken when the weather was not conducive.

The report added that the soldiers collapsed due to heat and exhaustion.

Clearly, an unrelated video of an endurance run is being shared with a misleading anti-vaccine narrative.

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