May 8, 2025
NEW DELHI – The dust from India’s air strikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir had barely settled when a barrage of unverified claims and misinformation was unleashed online, adding further uncertainty to developments in the ongoing confrontation between the two South Asian neighbours.
For instance, India denies that any civilians were killed in the air strikes launched in the early hours of May 7, while Pakistan has stated that 26 civilians were killed and 46 were wounded. These claims have not been independently verified as at 9am on May 8.
But many handles on X have posted photos of dead bodies, including those of children, claiming they were killed in India’s air strikes, as well as unverified videos showing chaotic scenes at emergency wards in Pakistani hospitals.
At a press briefing in New Delhi on May 7 to share details on the operation, dubbed Operation Sindoor, Indian authorities did not take questions, but Colonel Sofiya Qureshi from the Indian Army told the media that “so far there are no reports of civilian damage” in Pakistan.
Wing Commander Vyomika Singh from the Indian Air Force added: “The locations were so selected to avoid damage to civilian infrastructures and loss of any civilian lives.”
The Indian government said all the terrorist training camps struck by its missiles were successfully “neutralised with clinical efficiency” but it did not share figures of any casualties caused by its air strikes at these locations.
Indian media reports, quoting unnamed government sources, have cited fatality figures as high as 70.
On the other hand, authorities have said, at least 15 civilians were killed in India-administered Jammu and Kashmir on May 7 in cross-border shelling by Pakistan following New Delhi’s airstrikes.
India has also not commented on Pakistan’s statement that its forces shot down five Indian aircraft.
An employee with one of India’s top fact-checking organisations said she woke up to a deluge of misleading posts playing up the success of India’s air strikes in her WhatsApp inbox on the morning of May 7.
She did not want to be named, as she was not authorised to speak to the media.
“A lot of unrelated, old visuals of air strikes, including those from Israel’s strikes on Gaza, are being shared by Indians, as visuals of India’s air strikes on Pakistan as part of Operation Sindoor,” the fact-checker told The Straits Times.
A large part of the problem is that these old, unrelated and misleading images and videos are also being shared by established media organisations as well as popular verified handles.
Multiple Indian news channels uploaded a widely shared video from Gaza showing a series of massive explosions and people running helter-skelter, with captions claiming it to be footage of Indian air strikes against Pakistani targets.
Even India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party shared a collage of nine videos on May 7, claiming they were of India’s strikes on Pakistan. At least two of them were found to be unrelated to Operation Sindoor.
Boom, an Indian fact-checking organisation, found that the first clip was from Iran’s October 2024 strikes on Israel and the third was from Israel’s air strikes on Gaza from October 2023.
With the war of narratives playing out online over Operation Sindoor, “pro-Pakistan handles” have also been sharing old and unrelated footage, claiming that Indian jets have been downed and military structures attacked.
The X account of the fact-checking unit of India’s Press Information Bureau has been debunking such posts, including those that showed a photo of an Indian fighter craft that crashed in Punjab in 2021 but claimed it was an Indian Rafale jet shot down by Pakistan near Bahawalpur in response to Operation Sindoor.
Social media posts have also falsely claimed that the Pakistan Air Force had targeted the airbase in Srinagar, in India-administered Jammu and Kashmir.
“Reports also indicate that many Pakistan-based Twitter handles are pretending to be Indians or even Indian military personnel, and are tweeting political content to create confusion and stir trouble within India,” said Ms Ruby Dhingra, managing editor of Newschecker, a fact-checking portal.
A deepfake video of US President Donald Trump was also shared widely on May 2. Falsely claiming his support for India, his fake avatar stated he would “erase Pakistan” if it attacked India.
“While AI-generated content hasn’t been prominent yet, we anticipate its use may increase as the situation develops,” Ms Dhingra added.
India’s air strikes on May 7 were in response to a terror attack in Pahalgam in Kashmir on April 22 that killed 26 tourists, mostly Hindus.
Misinformation had also surged after this attack, in which non-Muslim men, mostly Hindus, were identified and shot at point-blank range.
Ms Himanshi Narwal, whose husband and Indian Navy officer Vinay Narwal was killed in the attack, instantly became the target of right-wing Hindu trolls when she urged Indians not to target Muslims or Kashmiris and instead seek justice without hate.
Many Internet users, who had earlier mourned her loss, began posting abusive comments, labelling her as a “pro-Pak” and “Islamist apologist”. People mounted a character assassination campaign, posting conspiracy theories about her Muslim and Kashmiri friends from her stint back at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.
This prompted even the National Commission of Women to step in and condemn the trolling she was subjected to.
Given the deluge of misinformation now around Operation Sindoor, fact-checking organisations have urged internet users to remain vigilant and responsible in consuming and sharing content related to the ongoing conflict.
They have also asked users to diversify their news sources and reach out to established fact-checkers for accurate information if needed.
“I understand it gets difficult to cut through all the noise, but I would suggest identifying a handful of fact-checkers you trust and checking their sites for authentic information on any specific claim,” said Ms Nivedita Niranjankumar, a news editor with Boom.
“And if it is not there, reach out to fact-checking organisations with active and good helpline numbers so that the content can be verified.”
- Debarshi Dasgupta is The Straits Times’ India correspondent covering the country and other parts of South Asia.
- Rohini Mohan is The Straits Times’ India correspondent based in Bengaluru. She covers politics, business and human rights in the South Asian region.