Major Gaurav Arya tweets misleading video, defends the misinformation - Alt News
Jignesh Patel
15th March 2019 / 7:16 pm / Last updated: 16th March 2019
Major Gaurav Arya, an army veteran and host of Republic TV’s show, ‘Patriot’, tweeted a video on March 14. In the video, a group of blindfolded soldiers, whose hands are tied behind their backs, are seen being beaten severely by two personnel dressed in uniform. The message attached to the video reads, “On 27 Feb freedom fighters of Baloch Republic Army attacked 3 Pak Army posts in Mand area, Distt Kech, Balochistan. So ferocious was the attack that soldiers of Frontier Corps ran away. They were caught by Pak Army SSG & thrashed brutally”.
On 27 Feb freedom fighters of Baloch Republic Army attacked 3 Pak Army posts in Mand area, Distt Kech, Balochistan. So ferocious was the attack that soldiers of Frontier Corps ran away. They were caught by Pak Army SSG & thrashed brutally. See Pak Army without clothes 👇 pic.twitter.com/9faFdSV8gz
— Major Gaurav Arya (Retd) (@majorgauravarya) March 14, 2019
According to Arya’s narrative, freedom fighters of the Baloch Republic Army had attacked three Pakistani army posts on February 27, 2019, after which the soldiers of the Frontier Corps fled the location. Later, these soldiers of Frontier Corps were caught and thrashed by the Pakistani Army’s Special Service Group (SSG). If Arya’s narrative is to be believed, then the incident depicted in the video happened after the soldiers’ escape on February 27.
Alt News found that the same video was posted on YouTube on February 5, 2019, which is at least 22 days before the alleged incident of soldiers deserting the post; thus proving that the video cannot be representative of an incident which had allegedly happened after February 27, 2019, as it already existed on February 5, 2019.
A closer analysis of the video also confirms that the video pertains to a torture-proofing exercise carried out by the Pakistan’s SSG. Watching the video frame-by-frame, one can see the word “instructor” written on the back of the t-shirt of one of the personnel, further indicating that this is a training process. The slow motion video can be seen below. You can read our detailed fact-check here.
In another tweet, Major Gaurav Arya vehemently denied that the video pertains to Pakistan’s SSG training after being pointed out by multiple social media users.
Clueless Pakistanis commenting on the video in my Tweet below 👇are saying this is SSG training. It’s not. Training to resist torture is a highly technical process & involves immense psychological, physical & emotional stress. It’s not like this – danda liya aur thok diya 😂
— Major Gaurav Arya (Retd) (@majorgauravarya) March 14, 2019
My Nation had also published an article on the video with an identical narrative.
On March 12, another army veteran, Major Surendra Poonia had tweeted the same video, but with a slightly different narrative that Pakistan army’s SSG was flogging Baloch freedom fighters.
Barbaric !
Pak army’s SSG beating Baloch freedom fighters in Mand Area of Kech District in Pakistan !
The way Pakistan treating Ppl of
Balochistan..Soon a new nation will come up on the Map.@amnesty @hrw @UN What about Human Rights of Baloch People ? Aren’t they HUMAN ?? pic.twitter.com/n7KkgMU22Y
— Major Surendra Poonia (@MajorPoonia) March 12, 2019
As stated before, it is ironical that Arya claims the incident corresponding to the video has happened on or after February 27, while the video was available on YouTube at least 22 days before the day of desertion. Major Arya has refused to delete his tweet, despite several social media users referring to our previous fact-check article in response to his tweet.
Jignesh is a writer and researcher at Alt News. He has a knack for visual investigation with a major interest in fact-checking videos and images. He has completed his Masters in Journalism from Gujarat University.
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