Foreign media, Pakistan govt use a loop of lies to claim ‘Indian fighter jets shot down’ despite zero evidence: Pakistani defence minister says he read it on ‘social media’

Amidst the ongoing India-Pakistan tensions triggered by the Pakistan-sponsored Jihadi terror attack in Pahalgam and retaliated by India’s Operation Sindoor targeting terrorist and their infrastructure in Pakistan, the hostile neighbour is peddling disinformation to evade embarrassment. While Pakistan making unfounded claims of shooting down multiple Indian fighter jets is not shocking per se, given the country thrives on lies and anti-India rhetoric, the foreign media is uncritically amplifying these imaginary claims.

In this vein, The New York Times in its report “The Indian Aircraft Pakistan Says It Shot Down” amplified Pakistani lies of having shot down five Indian warplanes, including three Rafale fighter jets, one MIG-29 fighter aircraft, and one Su-30 fighter jet.

While Pakistan has failed to provide any substantial proof, including visuals of the wreckage of the supposedly downed Indian fighter jets, NYT decided to take ‘expert’ opinion of John E Pike, the director of Global Security, who speculated that those five aircraft and the drone could have been downed by surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. Because “Pakistan has both”. There was no evidence to back Pakistan’s claims, zero visuals despite the flood of visuals of India’s successful target hits inside Pakistan, but the New York Times went with a baseless claim anyway.

Similarly, the Washington Post published a report with the headline “Pakistan claims to have downed Indian warplanes, vows response to strikes.” However, the article only amplified the unfounded claims made by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif that the Pakistan Air Force shot down five Indian warplanes, including three French-made Rafales.

Meanwhile, Reuters decided to publish absolute lies even as the very visuals it attached in its report expose the publication’s falsehoods. On 7^th May,  Reuters put out a report with the headline, “Three fighter jets crashed in India’s Jammu and Kashmir, local govt sources say”.

In this article, Reuters cited ‘local sources’ to claim that three Indian fighter jets crashed in India’s Jammu and Kashmir territory. The news outlet quoted a Pakistani military spokesperson who claimed that PAF shot down Indian fighter jets.

In all these reports, the only featured image was the image of a discarded external fuel tank that is shed during flights by fighter jets, known as drop tanks.

Notably, Pakistan has failed to provide video proof or even a photograph of the Indian fighters that were attacked. One unconfirmed video that has gone viral on social media showed locals filming an airplane’s underwing. However, the picture was originally posted in September 2024.

Meanwhile, CNN also decided to jump on the bandwagon of pushing falsehoods about Indian warplanes by amplifying a circle loop of ‘claims’. In its report headlined: “India strikes deep inside Pakistan, Pakistan claims 5 Indian jets shot down, in major escalation”, CNN on 7^th May cited Pakistani ‘military sources’ to claim that PAF shot down five Indian fighter jets and one drone in “self-defense,” claiming three Rafale jets – sophisticated multi-role fighters made in France – were among those downed as well as a MiG-29 and an SU-30 fighter.”

As if this much buffoonery was not enough, CNN also claimed that Indian aircraft had crashed in Jammu and Kashmir despite it being clear from the visuals themselves that the wreckage was not that of fighter jets but of a drop tank. It further mentioned that news agency AFP showed wreckage of the ‘aircraft’ lying in a field next to a red-brick building, however, it added that it was not clear to which side the aeroplane belonged.

Besides Reuters, NYT and WaPo, and CNN, the Chinese media house Global Times also claimed that Pakistan reportedly shot down three Indian fighter jets.

However, the Indian Embassy in China promptly refuted them and asked the outlet to verify facts and scrutinise sources prior to sharing such disinformation. Community Notes also fact-checked the Chinese propaganda. “There’s no truth to claims about any Indian aircraft being shot down. No evidence, no official word, no credible sources. It’s all dis/misinformation designed to mislead and push fake narratives. Don’t fall for it. Always check the facts,” it read.

The Chinese propaganda outlet however, remains undeterred from peddling lies to save its ally cum vassal Pakistan from the embarrassment inflicted upon it by India through the successful execution of Operation Sindoor. Apparently, the desperation of the Chinese media outlet stems also from the fact that even Chinese equipment procured by Pakistan could be of no use in preventing India’s operation on Pakistani soil.

In a report, Global Times said, “Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Wednesday confirmed that J-10C jets participated in Pakistan’s response to Indian attacks, media reported, following wide speculations over if Pakistan’s equipment procured from China have played roles in the clash that led to the downing of several Indian aircraft.”

Global Times, taking a page from the Pakistani establishment’s Goebbelsian playbook, has, evidently, decided to peddle a lie a thousand times to make it seem true. No wreckage, no visuals, no Indian pilots caught or found dead yet, Pakistan and its Chinese masters want the world to believe that PAF downed Indian warplanes. In another report, Global Times published outright fake news citing The Hindu report, to claim that three Indian fighter jets crashed on Wednesday in Akhnoor, Ramban and Pampore areas of Jammu and Kashmir.  

The Hindu initially reported that three Indian fighter jets had crashed in the Akhnoor region of Jammu and Kashmir, citing a government official. However, the report was subsequently removed, and the publication expressed regret, confirming that there was no official information on record from India regarding this incident.

The Hindu posted 4 photographs with the tweet, purportedly of the crashed Indian jets. In one of the images used in the report, the caption said, “Wreckage of Indian Air force fighter jet that crashed in Wuyan Pampore, South Kashmir on May 7, 2025.” The caption of another image says, “Firefighters douse smoke coming out from the debris of an aircraft near Akhnoor on the outskirts of Jammu, on May 7, 2025. 

However, no such crash took place, and the Hindu report was completely baseless. A study of the images published by them shows that the object that crashed onto the ground is actually an external fuel tank, not a fighter jet. Fighter jets on longer missions carry such external fuel tanks under their wings. After the fuels are used, the tanks can be jettisoned, and they crash onto the ground. They are called ‘Drop tanks,’ as they can be dropped from the air after they are no longer needed. Therefore, this does not mean that the jets crashed; it just means the jets dumped their external fuel tanks inside Kashmir.

After the claim was found to be false, The Hindu deleted the post, and ‘regretted’ that it created confusion among people. While The Hindu retracted its factually baseless story and issued a clarification on the same, neither Global Times nor Reuters, which peddled the same falsehood, have retracted their stories devoid of facts.  

For argument’s sake, even if we assume that Indian planes did fall on the Indian side, why are there no visuals? Jammu and Kashmir is now swarming with media and reporters everywhere, everyone has a phone and internet. If the incident was indeed true, there would have been no chance of hiding it from the cameras of the on-ground journalists and locals, since, unlike Pakistan, which concocts lies and coverups for its damages, Indian armed forces do not operate that way.

While foreign media are pushing Pakistani lies of having downed Indian fighter jets, the Pakistani defence minister says “It’s all over social media” when asked for proof

On one hand, the foreign leftist media is amplifying Pakistani fake claims of shooting down Indian warplanes and citing dubious Pakistani ‘sources’, the hostile neighbour’s Defence Minister Khwaja Asif attributed his nation’s claims of having downed five Indian fighter jets, including Rafales during “Operation Sindoor” to ‘social media posts’.

“It is all on social media, and Indian social media, not our social media. The debris of the jets fell on their side. It is all over the Indian media,” he replied when CNN interviewer Becky Anderson asked him for any concrete evidence to back the claims. “You’re the defence minister, sir. The reason to talk to you today is not to talk about content all over social media,” she interjected and pointed out that he was not summoned to talk about social media content but rather to present genuine proof.

When she again urged him to substantiate his statement with evidence, inquiring whether any Chinese equipment was utilised to bring down the Rafael jets, he denied and then continued to stumble over his words.

He stated that Pakistan possesses Chinese aircraft that are produced and assembled domestically. He subsequently launched into a tirade about India’s procurement of aircraft from France, declaring that his country could similarly acquire them from China, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom for their own use. “They have already admitted that their three planes are down,” he alleged, disregarding the issue of evidence entirely.

Evidently, the foreign media is grasping baseless, blatant lies of Pakistan to peddle false headlines either out of their genuine sympathy for the Jaish-e-Mohammad, Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists killed by the Indian forces in Pakistan, including the relatives of Jaish chief Masood Azhar, or due to their unwarranted disdain for India.

While the Islamist-sympathising media is essentially pushing a pro-Pakistan narrative relying on imaginary bravado of having shot down Indian warplanes, in reality, Indian Air Force hitting terrorist targets deep inside Pakistan only shows the hard truth, that India has unmatched air dominance and Pakistani defence system has failed to stop Indian missiles from eliminating terrorists and their jihad factories.

Pakistan’s strategy is clear: push communally charged rhetoric and concoct a narrative of imaginary aerial victories to offset the embarrassment of India’s deep strikes on terrorist infrastructures in its country. Pakistani government has unbanned X, to turn it alongside other social media platforms into a breeding ground for unverified images and videos, to weaponise social media as many Pakistani X users circulated old and unrelated visuals of MiG-29 crash in Rajasthan from 2024 or from a similar inident from 2021 to pass it off as fresh evidence of downed Indian fighter jets. Even Pakistani media is peddling using old visuals as recycled propaganda, although independent fact-checkers and India’s PIB are continuously debunking their lies.

Defying all ethics of journalism, a significant section of foreign media is parroting Pakistan’s unverified claims, citing ‘officials’ or vague imagery and refraining from taking down the fake news despite Indian authorities debunking those claims. No matter what lies Pakistan and international media peddle, the fact is, India’s air dominance was unmistakable, yet the measured approach of targeting only terrorist infrastructure and not Pakistani military facilities clearly demonstrates the country’s commitment to counterterrorism,m not warmongering.

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