Video unrelated to Operation Sindoor shared with claims that Pakistani jets in Sialkot moving toward J&K

An 18-second-long clip taken at night of what appears to be fighter jets in the sky is viral on social media with claims that these visuals are from Pakistan’s Sialkot and show Pakistani fighter jets flying towards Jammu and Kashmir.

This clip is among the flood of such aerial visuals that have gone viral amid the India-Pakistan conflict. On May 7, a fortnight after terrorists allegedly linked to Pakistan-based terror groups killed 26 civilians in Pahalgam, India launched ‘Operation Sindoor’ to target nine terror sites in the neighbouring country. As of May 12, a ceasefire is on, but ties between the two countries remain tense.

The clip of the jets in the sky was shared by X user @jacksonhinklle on May 9 with the following caption: “BREAKING: Locals in sialkot report seeing Pakistan’s fighter jets soaring towards Jammu Kashmir.” The post has received over 160,000 views and has been retweeted more than 500 times. (Archive)

Note that Alt News has written about misinformation disseminated by this account in the past.

Sharing the same video on May 10, X user @erbmjha sarcastically mentioned: “PAF jets flying over SIALKOT for neutralising drones”. The post received over 218,000 views and has been reshared over 500 times. (Archive)

This user, too, has amplified misinformation in the past and was fact-checked by Alt News on several occasions.

🚨 PAF jets flying over SIALKOT for neutralising drones 😹🫣 pic.twitter.com/5yWxXXXu7n

— BALA (@erbmjha) May 9, 2025

Below are screenshots of the same video shared by several other users.

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Fact Check

To verify the claim, we broke down the viral clip into multiple key frames and ran a reverse image search on a few of them. We found a YouTube video with the same viral clip posted by a channel named ‘Malik Ali Raza’. The video was titled: “Pakistan Air Force Fighter jets roaring near Indian Border” and was posted on April 25, 2025, nearly two weeks before ‘Operation Sindoor’ was launched. While the headline makes a reference to India and Pakistan, the publication date of the video predates the current conflict.

Taking cue from this, we looked further and came across an X post by @ibrahimkaragul who also posted the same video on April 25 along with a caption in Turkish which can be translated as: “This night; India war planes Pakistan airspace pushing, at its borders flights are doing. Pakistan planes one after another are taking off. Pakistan navy at sea defense position is taking. India-Pakistan at the border, in Kashmir of clashes that there are regarding unconfirmed information is coming”.

Bu gece;

Hindistan savaş uçakları Pakistan hava sahasını zorluyor, sınırlarında uçuşlar yapıyor.

Pakistan uçakları ardı ardına havalanıyor. Pakistan donanması denizde savunma pozisyonu alıyor.

Hint-Pakistan sınırındı, Keşmir’de çatışmaların
olduğuna dair teyit edilmemiş… pic.twitter.com/YIgiqx5VRf

— İbrahim Karagül (@ibrahimkaragul) April 24, 2025

We then ran a relevant keyword search from around that time and found news reports about a drill exercise, ‘Aakraman’, conducted by the Indian Air Force pilots. According to an April 26 report by India Today, the drill involved India’s frontline fighter jets and was described by the IAF as a routine training exercise. The report also said that the exercise triggered panic in Pakistan, prompting its forces to “go on alert and scramble military aircraft to air bases near the Union Territory” of Jammu and Kashmir. Data from the flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed Pakistan Air Force (PAF) aircraft departing from Karachi and heading to northern bases near Lahore and Rawalpindi.

It is likely that the viral video captured movements from either of the sides. However, Alt News was not able to conclusively verify this. What remains clear, though, is that the now-viral clip is not related to Operation Sindoor and the shelling that followed, which only began on the intervening night of May 6 and 7.