Indian media caught spreading fake news on Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley

Hyderabad: A defense journal from the United Kingdom called out Times Now for broadcasting a clip of an F-15 flying in Wales, while claiming it to be a Pakistani fighter jet hovering in Afghanistan’s Panjshir valley.

Earlier, Republic TV and Zee Hindustan shared footage from the video game Arma-3 and presented it as the Pakistani air force attacking the anti-Taliban fighters in the Panjshir valley.

Republic TV later posted a justification blaming Hasti TV for sharing the video on Facebook. Hasti TV a well-known propaganda network for fourth Reich (new wave of neo-Nazi movement) went on to add that many other Indian media outlets have shared the video.

A co-founder of Alt News, Mohammed Zubair said that the channel is implying that they shouldn’t be blamed, as other channels too shared the footage.  

On Tuesday, fact-checker Zubair called out TV9’s senior executive editor, Nishant Chaturvedi for the same blunder of sharing video game ARMA-3’s footage and claiming it to be from Panjshir Valley.

The fact-checker further added that the same video game was shared last year by TV9 as footage of the Armenia Azerbaijan conflict.

Alt News also did a fact-check on a video presented by Zee Hindustan on September 3, which showed a minor girl operating a machine gun claiming that she has taken up arms against the Taliban in Panjshir.

However, after a reverse image search by Atl News, it was discovered that the original video dated January 28, 2020, is from Balochistan province in Pakistan.

India Today and Aaj Tak were caught running news on Ahmad Massoud on the basis of a fake Twitter handle. A journalist of the PakDaily, Hamza Azhar Salam, called out the two channels clarifying that the account of Ahmad Massoud used in their report is fake and that his real account is @AhmadMassoud01.

Mr. Salaam further clarified that the picture used by the channels is not a Pakistani jet in Panjshir, it is a US jet in Arizona from 2018.