Unrelated video of soldier’s last rites viral in context of Pulwama anniversary

The Pulwama attack took place on February 14, 2019, in which terrorists attacked a convoy of Central Reserved Police Force jawans in Jammu and Kashmir killing 40 personnel.

This year marked the fourth anniversary of the attack, and social media users shared a video of a last rites ceremony of a martyred soldier, and his daughters paying tribute.

MeghUpdates, a Twitter account, shared this video with a caption that suggested this video was related to the Pulwama attack. The video has over 500,000 views and has gone viral.

Never Foget Never Forgive

Heartfelt tributes to our brave heroes who lost their lives in #PulwamaAttack .
The Nation🇮🇳 will always be Indebted by your Supreme Sacrifice. Salute to the families.#PulwamaAttack2019#PulwamaAttack#BlackDayForIndia pic.twitter.com/7IS7sryyh3

— Megh Updates 🚨™ (@MeghUpdates) February 14, 2023

Another Twitter user named Anton Chigurh also shared this video in the same context.

#PulwamaAttack2019 💔 pic.twitter.com/RAx9aT2O1P

— Anton Chigurh  (@NRI_Uganda) February 14, 2023

A Twitter user named Panda in Exile also shared the video and claimed it to be related to the Pulwama Attack.

14 Feb is not about Couples!
It is about 40 brave soldiers who martyred for our country.🇮🇳💐
JAI HIND 🙏#PulwamaAttack2019 pic.twitter.com/QBcw137OQO

— panda (@pandainexile) February 14, 2023

Fact Check

By reverse searching one of the key-frames of the clip on Yandex, Alt News came across various news reports from 2015 on YouTube which carried the video. One such report was from Aaj Tak which showed the same video that is going viral in the context of the Pulwama Attack.

According to the report, the women seen in the video are the daughters of Colonel Munindra Nath Rai, who died from bullet wounds in a Srinagar hospital on January 27, 2015, after he had got severely injured in an armed encounter with Hizbul Mujahideen militants. This was just a day after Rai had received a Gallantry medal on Republic Day.

In another video report by IndiaTV, the late Colonel’s daughters can be seen. They are the same women as in the viral video.

Hence, the viral video shared in the context of the Pulwama Attack is not related to the incident. In fact, the video is from January 2015, where the daughters of the martyred Colonel M N Rai were paying their last respects to their late father.

Vansh Shah is an intern with Alt News.