“देर शाम कश्मीर में 15 आतंकी हिरासत में लिए गए। उनमेसे एक आतंकी की मेहमान नवाज़ी देखें। जंग शुरू होगयी हैं, जय हिन्द”(Late in the evening, 15 terrorists were arrested in Kashmir. Look how one of the terrorists is being treated. The war has begun. Jai Hind -translated), reads a message posted with a horrid video of a man being tortured. As seen in the video, some people are brutally thrashing a person while holding him down. The message circulated along with the video suggests that the person who is being flogged is a terrorist, arrested after the deadly terror attack in Pulwama that led to the death of 40 CRPF personnel.
Another user Rohit Pratap Singh Yadav also posted the video with a message saying, “देखो जल्दी भारतवासियों हमारे देश में आतंकवाद के खिलाफ शुरूआत हो गयी है भाई तुरंत अभी का है (People of India see this recent video, fight against terrorism has started now -translated).
One Pandit Aakash Mishra was among the several other individuals, who have shared this video with a similar narrative on Facebook.
Debunked five months ago
In September 2018, Alt News had debunked this video and found that it pertains to a SERE(Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape) training module undertaken by the Pakistani army. Thus, the personnel torturing a person in the video are in fact Pakistan army personnel and NOT jawans of the Indian army. Earlier, the video was falsely shared as that of Indian army personnel thrashing civilians in Kashmir.
At 0:17 mins in the video posted above, Pakistan’s national flag can be seen for a split second, but only when the exposure and brightness of the screenshot is increased.
Furthermore, Alt News found a video footage of a report published by the Pakistani Urdu news channel Express News. According to the reporter, he claims to be at the SSG Headquarters in Cherat of Nowshera district. He can be heard explaining how the personnel are trained to resist torture and to not reveal sensitive information. You can read the detailed fact-check here.
In conclusion, a video of a training undertaken by the Pakistani army was shared as that of Indian army soldiers dealing with a terrorist after the Pulwama attack
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