Old interview of J&K civilian falsely portrayed as terrorist resurfaces after Pulwama attack

“आज सुबह और कल हमने जिस शख्स को धमाके से उड़ा हुआ देखा या पढ़ा वह आज इंटरव्यू दे रहा है ! शाबाश मीडिया और बीजेपी (This morning and yesterday, the person whom you saw or read being blown in a blast is giving an interview today. Well done media and BJP -translated)”, reads a caption promulgated with a video on social media. A video shared by a user, Naveen Juglan with the aforementioned text, has been shared more than 14,000 times and viewed more than 4 lakh times so far.

Several Facebook users have shared the video with the identical narrative.

Fact-check

This is yet another old, unrelated video that has gone viral in the backdrop of the Pulwama terror attack and the response of Indian security forces. The interview is now more than a year old. It was uploaded on Facebook by a Hindi news channel, A2Z News in November 2017.

Later, it came to light that the photograph of one such slain terrorist identified as Abu Jargam is actually Abdul Majid, a resident of Jammu. Majid, who runs a meat business, was shocked to the core when he saw his picture on the leading dailies depicted as a terrorist. The video posted above pertains to the interview, where he spoke to the channel after this incident.

In conclusion, an old interview of a civilian from Jammu, who was falsely depicted as a slain terrorist by the media outlets was shared as recent. The false narrative attached to the video sought to discredit the media reports about JeM terrorists killed in the first major encounter after the Pulwama terror attack.