Pak army spokesperson tweets old, doctored video of former Indian Air Marshal

Spokesperson of the Pakistani Armed Forces Major General Asif Ghafoor tweeted a video of former Indian Air Marshal Denzil Keelor to suggest that the latter had admitted about India’s loss in Balakot airstrike. Ghafoor posted a 103-second clip on Twitter with the message, “Admission of Indian failure and losses on 27 February 2019 by a well-decorated Indian Airforce veteran Air Marshal Denzil Keelor.” At the time of the writing this article, the video has been retweeted more than 5,600 times.

Admission of Indian failure and losses on 27 February 2019 by a well decorated Indian Airforce veteran Air Marshal Denzil Keelor.#Surprise pic.twitter.com/uTeErbucCl

— Asif Ghafoor (@peaceforchange) July 28, 2019

In the clip, several visuals of a crashed aircraft and Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman’s clip that was released by the Pakistani army after he was captured are visible on the top-left corner. It further shows Keelor saying, “Some of the things that happened are losses, for instance. During the war, you win and you lose. Some of the losses were not right. They were due to tactical errors, due to inexperience and you know you can’t go to war with this type of inexperience. As I told you, we had trained people there and the people who went for training had to come in and join us. So, you had a group of people who were trained and who are not trained. The price we paid for it was quite heavy.” He then goes on to talk about Pakistan’s radar, interception and air defence system.

Old, edited video

The video posted by Asif Ghafoor was found out to be old and edited. Ghafoor’s claim that the former Air Marshal was admitting to Indian Air Force’s loses in Balakot airstrike is false as the interview was uploaded on YouTube almost four years ago. Balakot airstrike took place in February 2019.

The description posted along with the video calls out the false narrative propagated by the Pakistani army spokesperson on Twitter. It also states that Keelor’s statement was made in the context of the 1962 and 1965 wars.

After several netizens pointed out to Ghafoor that he had posted an old video of Indian Air Marshal, the Pakistani army spokesperson tweeted a clarification regarding the video while refusing to delete the same.

The clip of Air Marshal is revealed to be doctored through inset. Admission and expression were too identical to differentiate. Unintentional omission is acknowledged, especially to Indians.
Nonetheless, environment remained unchanged for IAF on both the occasions.

— Asif Ghafoor (@peaceforchange) July 28, 2019

In conclusion, Pakistani army spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor tweeted an old and edited video of former Indian Air Marshal Denzil Keelor to falsely claim that the latter had admitted to the Indian Air Force suffering major loses in the Balakot airstrike.