New Delhi: With the festive season of Diwali coinciding with the Indian Army’s counter offensive targeting four launch pads in the Neelum valley in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) on 20 October, social media users in India are circulating a video of firing, claiming it to be India’s “Diwali wish” to Pakistan.
The extremely grainy video purportedly shows firing across the Line of Control in PoK.
Sharing the video on Twitter, Pawan Durani, a film director with nearly 50,000 followers, put up a post tagging the Indian Army’s Additional Directorate General of Public Information. The post read: “This is @adgpi wishing Pakistan army some Diwali wishes …. many more wishes will be sent across , and loads of them. @OfficialDGISPR I hope you & @ImranKhanPTI are enjoying these ? #Kashmir.”
This is @adgpi wishing Pakistan army some Diwali wishes …. many more wishes will be sent across , and loads of them @OfficialDGISPR I hope you & @ImranKhanPTI are enjoying these ? #Kashmir pic.twitter.com/UMY1k5IcEc
— Pawan Durani (@PawanDurani) October 20, 2019
The post had over 300 likes and over 1,300 reshares on the microblogging site at the time of writing this report.
The video is doing the rounds on WhatsApp and Facebook too, along with a message that reads: “Indian army wishing #Diwali to pak in their own style #JaiShriRam” and “India Strikes in POK #NeelumValley #DiwaliCelebration”
Old video being made to look recent
The video has nothing to do with the Neelum valley strikes that took place on October 20. In fact, the video first surfaced on a Pakistani YouTube channel called “Live Updates” in March 2019. The channel says the “exculsive” footage was of “Pakistan vs india” firing along the border.
The source of the video remains unknown.
Post viral amid Indo-Pak tensions
The viral posts, tinged with nationalistic fervour, come at a time when India and Pakistan have been loggerheads since the February 2019 Pulwama attacks, which only got accentuated after the Narendra Modi government scrapped Article 370 in Kashmir on 5 August.
In collaboration with SM HoaXslayer