New Delhi: India on Friday called out China Daily, a daily newspaper owned by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party, over a photograph shared on its X handle while claiming that three Indian Jets had crashed on Wednesday in Kashmir.
PIB Fact Check mentioned that the image was from an earlier incident from 2019. “This is part of a coordinated propaganda campaign aimed at creating panic and misleading the public,” it added.
What Happened In 2019
On February 26, 2019, India had carried out strikes at the “biggest” training camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) in Balakot of Pakistan, 12 days after the Pulwana suicide bomber attack in which 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were martyred. It was carried out by 12 Mirage-2000 fighter jets, which unleashed five one-tonne bombs on the camp, based 70 km inside the Line of Control (LoC), in the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakthunkhwa. Pakistan retaliated the next day by sending several aircraft to the LoC and was countered by Indian Air Force jets, which then shot down an F-16 jet. However, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman had to eject over the LoC after the MiG-21 he was flying was shot by a Pakistani plane. He landed in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, where he was taken into custody, only to be returned to India on March 1, 2019.
Pakistan Lies Backed By China
Another Chinese state media ‘Global Times’ also promoted this fake news that Pakistan has shot down 3 Indian Jets after India launched ‘Operation Sindoor’. “The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has shot down another Indian fighter jet in response to overnight airstrikes carried out by India at multiple locations in Pakistan, sources from the Pakistani military said on Wednesday. This is the third Indian fighter jet that has been shot down in response to the overnight strikes, said the military sources: Xinhua.”
It was publicly called out by the Indian Embassy in China, which asked the portal to “verify facts” and “cross-examine sources” before pushing out disinformation.
Interestingly, Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, in a CNN interview, claimed that five Indian fighter jets had been shot down by Pakistani forces, citing social media as his only source of evidence
Notably, Pakistan has launched a widespread disinformation campaign in an attempt to regain control of the narrative through digital manipulation and unverified claims after being hit hard during Operation Sindoor on May 6-7.