Anantnag encounter video from 2021 viral as crackdown after Pahalgam attack

by Prantik Ali

Within days of the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, a video has gone viral on social media showing a house engulfed with fire and smoke. Gunshots can be heard throughout the 26 seconds that the video lasts. Towards the end, the firing gets intense as a few people try to escape through the burning house through a side-door. The clip is being shared as visuals of Indian troops flushing out and killing terrorists.

Verified X user Deepak Sharma (@SonOfBharat7) posted the video, with a Hindi caption, which stated that the house on fire was a terrorist hideout, which is why it was being cleared out by the Indian Army. The latter part of his caption, when translated into English, reads: “Any house where Afzal is seen will be reduced to ashes.” At the time of this article being written, the tweet has garnered close to 5 Lakh views, and has been re-shared more than 3,500 times. (Archive)

Readers should also note that this user has been found amplifying misinformation several times in the past.

The viral video was also shared by Sagar Kumar (@KumaarSaagar), a journalist with propaganda outlet Sudarshan News, with the same claim. This post has also received a huge number of views and re-shares. (Archive)

Note that Alt News has, on several occasions, called out hateful and misleading content posted by this pro-Right news outlet. 

Another premium-subscribed X user (@TheBahubali_IND), posted the same video, alleging that the house was being blown up by the Indian forces because the resident had been harbouring a terrorist. (Archive)

X users Ocean Jain (@ocjain4) and Avkush Singh Malik (@AvkushSingh), too, shared the clip with similar claims. (Archive 1, Archive 2)

We found several other instances as well some of which are here: (Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4)

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Fact Check

To check the veracity of the claims, we ran a reverse image search on one of the key frames from the viral video. This led us to a YouTube video uploaded more than a year ago, on January 24, 2024.

 

We came across another YouTube video, uploaded by Excelsior News, a Kashmiri news outlet, on May 12, 2021 in a report on the Kokernag Encounter. According to the headline, the militants fell prey to the heavy firing from the Indian troops as they were trying to escape from a hideout.

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To further verify this, we ran a relevant keyword search on X, and were led to this post, uploaded by the official X handle of Kashmir Zone Police (@KashmirPolice), on May 11, 2021. It states that three terrorists had been killed by the Indian forces in Anantnag. 

It is evident that the viral video is not, in any way, associated with the recent terrorist attack in Pahalgam. In reality, it shows footage of an encounter by the Indian forces, in Kokernag, from May 2021, which left three militants dead.

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