On December 9, 2022, a clash broke out between Indian and Chinese soldiers in the Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh, with several personnel on both sides sustaining injuries. Following the news of the skirmish surfacing, a video is being widely circulated on social media as visuals of the recent clash in the Tawang sector.
A user named Kapil Kumar made the claim while tweeting this video. (Archived link)
🚨 Full Video
Clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh#Army #China #IndianaJones#IndiaChina #Tawang #ArunachalPradesh#IndianArmy #Today pic.twitter.com/WLhdTbnaed
— 𝐊𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐥 𝐊𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐫 (@kapilkumaron) December 12, 2022
Another user described it as a video of a clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers. (Archived link)
Kalesh B/w Indian and Chinese Army Troopspic.twitter.com/UWhlwCigbH
— Ghar Ke Kalesh (@gharkekalesh) December 12, 2022
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Twitter user Sangh Astha also promoted the claim and shared the viral footage. (Archived link)
Clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers in Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang#IndiaChina #Tawang #ArunachalPradesh#IndianArmy pic.twitter.com/2m176rddSk
— Sangh Astha (@sanghastha) December 12, 2022
Fact Check
We performed a reverse image search using frames taken from the viral video and found another version of the viral video uploaded on YouTube on May 31, 2020. The title describes it as a scene of a skirmish between Indian and Chinese soldiers at Pangong Lake in Ladakh.
India Today journalist Shiv Aroor tweeted this video on June 17, 2020. He described it as a video from the end of May 2020.
Clearer and clearer that the June 15 bloodbath in Galwan was not spontaneous, but was 100% Chinese premeditated. Spontaneous clashes between India-China troops have never resulted in death or even serious injury, for instance this most recent one from late May in Pangong: pic.twitter.com/0xR1HzEc74
— Shiv Aroor (@ShivAroor) June 17, 2020
It is worth noting that 20 Indian soldiers were killed in the June 15, 2020 clash between Indian and Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley in Ladakh. At the time, this video was being shared as showing that clash, a claim which Alt News fact-checked.
Overall, several social media users falsely shared footage from a May 2020 clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers as the recent skirmish in the Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh in December 2022.
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