Amid escalating tensions between India And Pakistan, a video was aired by the Indian media on May 9 which showed an air defense system foiling aerial attacks in the night sky. It was claimed that this was a video from Jaisalmer, Rajasthan.
The video was aired during anchor Anjana Om Kashyap’s show on India Today Group’s Hindi channel Aaj Tak. She claimed that this was a video of a Pakistani air attack being thwarted in Jaisalmer, India, ‘a short while ago’.
This video was also shown in a bulletin hosted by anchor Shweta Singh on Aaj Tak where it was described as a Pakistani air attack in Jaisalmer, which was foiled by the Indian air defense system. News channel NDTV also ran the video and claimed that it was footage of India foiling Pakistani airstrikes in Jaisalmer.
News channel India TV also ran the video claiming it to be from Jaisalmer.
Similarly, Times Now, Times Now Navbharat, ABP News, News18, One India, News Nation, and India TV amplified the video with the same claim.
Fact Check
Alt News performed a reverse image search of a few frames taken from this video on Google. This led us to a video uploaded by a YouTube channel named NSFchannel on May 11, 2021. The caption of this video states that it shows Israel’s air defense system, the Iron Dome, in action. Though Alt News cannot confirm this, it is clear that this video is at least four-year old and has no connection with the current conflict between India and Pakistan.
To sum up, several media channels, while reporting on the current India-Pakistan armed conflict, broadcast a four-year-old video of an air defence system thwarting air strikes and falsely claimed that the video was from Jaisalmer, India.
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