This video of Indian Army soldiers 'detaining Kashmir residents' dates back to at least 2018

This article is more than one year old.
Published on September 3, 2019 at 09:05
2 min read
By AFP India

A video has been viewed tens of thousands of times in multiple posts on Facebook and Twitter which claim it shows Indian Army soldiers using four Kashmiri boys as human shields on August 16, 2019 after India revoked Kashmir's special autonomy. The claim is false; the video has circulated online in media reports since at least 2018 about an incident in Kashmir.

The one-minute 15-second video was published in this Facebook post on August 18, 2019. It has been viewed more than 19,000 times.

The English caption states: “This is a latest video(16th August) of Jammu & Kashmir,suburbs of Srinagar where Indian Army used 4 detained Kashmiri boys as human shield to “defeat” some stone pelters some boys in jeans raising anti India slogans and brave soldiers abusing them saying “throw stones now”."

In the video, a man can be heard speaking in Urdu. His comments translate to English as: “Look at these cheat Indians, they have put our people in front so that we cannot throw stones. Look at these cowards, cowardly tribe. They have been picked up from their homes and kept in front of their vehicles so that no one throws stones. Leave, or we will force you to leave this land.”

Below is a screenshot of the misleading Facebook post:

In early August, the Indian government stripped the part of Kashmir it administers of its semi-autonomous status. Here is an AFP report about the developments.

The same video was shared on Facebook here and on Twitter here with a similar claim.

The claim is false; the video has circulated online in media reports since at least 2018 about an incident in Kashmir.

A slightly abridged one-minute two-second version of the video was published on June 18, 2018, by Kashmir-based journalist Ahmer Khan on Twitter here. His tweet is embedded below.

A video of youth being used as human shield by the Indian forces during protests & crackdown in south #Kashmir’s Pulwama goes viral on social media. #kashmir pic.twitter.com/N42uzi4bK6
— Ahmer Khan (@ahmermkhan) June 18, 2018

The video in the misleading posts corresponds with the video tweeted by Khan from the eight seconds mark to the one minute ten second mark.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading posts (L) and the video tweeted by Khan (R):

A screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading posts (L) and the video tweeted by Ahmer Khan (R)

Hindi-language news channel ABP also published video of the same incident alongside a news report here on their verified YouTube channel:

Below is a screenshot of the ABP report:

The video report is titled: “J&K (Jammu and Kashmir): Security Forces Pelted With Stones, Jawans Use Four Pelters As ‘Human Shield’ | ABP News.”

Several other media outlets reported the incident alongside screenshots of the footage here, here, here and here.

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