Edited, manipulated clip of former Pakistani diplomat discussing 2019 Indian air strike circulates on social media and in mainstream Indian press

The video was published on Facebook here on December 24, 2020.

In the clip's first nine seconds, Hilaly can be heard discussing India's air strike on the Pakistani town of Balakot on February 26, 2019.

India “committed an act of war” and “killed at least 300 people,” Hilaly appears to say.

The Facebook post’s caption reads: “Zafar Halali ex Pakistan Foreign office, officer, admitting that 300 Pakistanis were killed on 26th Feb 2019 at IAF strike at #Balakot”.

Pakistan said there were no casulties in the attack, which came after a suicide bomber killed dozens of troops in Indian Kashmir, as AFP reported here on February 26, 2019.

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Screenshot of misleading Facebook post

The video clip was also shared alongside similar claims on Facebook here, here, here and here; and on Twitter here and here; and on YouTube here and here.

On January 9, 2021, after the clip had circulated widely on social media, several Indian media outlets reported that Hilaly had admitted 300 people were killed in the attack; for example here and here.

The clip, however, was deceptively edited and has been digitally manipulated.

A Google keyword search found that the full video of Hilaly’s comments were published on YouTube here by Pakistani network Hum TV on December 23, 2020.

From the video’s 4:38 - 5:27 marks, Hilaly accused India of committing “an act of war” by “intending to kill at least 300 people”. At no point does he say 300 people were killed.

“You (India) had intention to strike an Islamic seminary where 300 students, as per your estimate, were studying. It means you were intended to kill 300 people. They were not there, your estimate was wrong so it did not happen and hence you dropped your bombs in a football field. Is this a small thing? What India did by crossing an international boundary was an act of war which was intended to kill at least 300 people,” Hilaly says in full.

A comparison of the original video and the deceptively edited clip also shows that the misleading clip has been inverted and a photo of Modi in military fatigues has been digitally inserted.

Below is a screenshot comparison of edited clip shared in the misleading Facebook posts (top) and the original YouTube video (bottom):

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Screenshot comparison of the two videos

Hilaly also took to Twitter to deny the claim, saying that the clip was edited in an attempt by India to “prove what they failed to do.”

“The extraordinarily extent to which the Indian Govt has gone to cut, splice and edit the tape of my Hum TV appearance suggests their desperation to prove what they failed to do, namely, lend credence to Modi’s lies about Balacot and his farcical claims,” Hilaly said in a tweet on January 10, 2021.

In a separate tweet on the same day, Hilaly criticized The Times of India, a major Indian daily newspaper, for sharing a clip that is a “spliced and edited tape” of his original remarks and stated Indian Prime Minister Nardendra Modi is “desperate for 3rd party confirmation for his lies”.

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