Op Sindoor: As Indian media made false, outrageous claims, PIB looked the other way
The second week of May was a busy time for fact-checkers at Union government’s Press Information Bureau (PIB) as it put out 68 fact-checks related to Operation Sindoor. While examining the tweets on PIB Fact Check’s official X handle between May 7 and May 16, Alt News noticed a distinct pattern in their selection of who to fact check and who not. One category that was conspicuous in its almost total absence in PIB’s body of work in this crucial period was falsehoods amplified by the Indian mainstream media.
India announced the launch of Operation Sindoor in the early hours of May 7, targeting nine terror bases in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Tensions escalated quickly into intense cross-border drone and missile strikes, leading to deaths of at least 21 civilians in Jammu and Kashmir in four days. On May 10, India and Pakistan reached an understanding of ceasefire and agreed to stop all firing and military action.
The Indian mainstream newsrooms, where hyper-nationalistic rhetoric bordering on jingoism has been the norm for quite some now, went absolutely berserk in these four days of armed conflict. Anchors and self-proclaimed defence experts made outrageous claims such as the destruction of the Karachi port by the Indian Navy, India attacking Islamabad, and even Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif surrendering to Indian forces. On innumerable occasions, they showed unrelated, old visuals in adrenaline-driven prime-time shows, falsely linking them to the ongoing conflict, without any verification.
A detailed study of PIB fact checks from this period by Alt News shows that it chose not to call out media outlets for making false, baseless and misleading claims regarding Operation Sindoor. Out of 68 fact checks shared on its official X handle, only two concerned media outlets.
The PIB fact-check unit was set up in 2019 following the then Vice-President of India, Venkaiah Naidu, expressing concern over the spread of ‘fake news’. The official website does not mention the methodology or scope of PIB’s fact-checking work. The Facebook page states that it debunks misinformation related to government policies and schemes.
The ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) on January 17, 2019, uploaded a new draft of amendments to the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which proposed that information identified as ‘fake or false’ by the PIB or any other agency authorized by the Union government be taken down by ‘intermediaries’.
At the time, Alt News had reported on the glaring gaps in PIB’s work in the domain of fact-checking. For instance, we noticed that while PIB had fact-checked misinformation by Opposition leaders such as Rahul Gandhi and activist-turned-TMC MP Saket Gokhale several times, not once did they fact-check a claim by any BJP leader. We also documented how PIB had flagged multiple YouTube channels and videos which were anti-BJP in nature.
Alt News noted a similar pattern during the post-Operation Sindoor India-Pakistan conflict.
The graphic below shows that during the flare-up PIB skipped fact-checking false claims by media houses, while independent outlets (Alt News, Boom Live and WebQoof by The Quint) did debunk misreports by these houses. The yellow column shows whether the media house in question has been fact-checked at least once by either Alt News, Boom Live, or WebQoof. The white column shows whether the media house in question has been fact-checked by PIB.
As readers can see, PIB fact-checked media outlets all but twice.
One of the two was a fact-check of claims about the “temporary closure of services on the Delhi-Mumbai airline route.” The accompanying tweet featured a screenshot from an NDTV news bulletin carrying the same claim, stamped with the word “Fake.”
The second was a quote-tweet of a post by the official handle of the district collector and magistrate of Jaipur, debunking a video shared by Times Now. The channel had claimed that explosions were heard at Jaipur airport. The collector clarified that the claim was false, and PIB amplified the statement.
To Name or Not to Name, That is the Question
We also noticed something interesting in a tweet by PIB fact check on May 15, in which they pointed out that Union external affairs minister S Jaishankar had been misquoted by “several news channels and social media posts” regarding claims that Chinese satellites had been aiding Pakistan. The tweet included a screengrab of a India Today bulletin, but the channel’s name and logo had been blurred out.
Several X users urged the agency to reveal the name of the outlet. The comparison below clearly establishes that it was India Today. We found several similar graphics, with the same header saying ‘Operation Sindoor’, the same font of text and the same red background on India Today’s YouTube channel.
In contrast, PIB explicitly named the international media outlet Al Jazeera in two recent fact checks. On May 12, it debunked Al Jazeera’s claim that an Indian female pilot was in Pakistani custody. Earlier, on May 10, it called out the outlet again for reporting that 10 explosions had occurred near Srinagar airport following a ceasefire announcement.
Another glaring example of PIB’s selective fact-checking was its focus on viral gaming footage shared as visuals from the war, while ignoring similar misreports by mainstream media. In a thread, PIB asked its readers to be vigilant and not “fall prey to such propaganda posts” of gaming footage being circulated as visuals of war. At the same time, Aaj Tak aired gaming footage claiming it showed missiles being fired from India, which was not fact-checked by PIB.
A Glimpse of What PIB Chose not to Fact-check
On May 9, several mainstream Indian news channels dramatically reported that the Indian Navy had destroyed Karachi port. The coverage was presented as exclusive breaking news, replete with sirens, distant artillery sounds, and dramatic visuals.
Aaj Tak’s Anjana Om Kashyap said on air, “…Karachi par bhi Bharatiya navsena ki bhishan hamla. Yeh saaf bata rahaa ki chaari taraf se-ab hum sagar ke bhi taraf se gherna mein kamyaab ho rahe hai…” (Translation: Shweta, there has been a fierce attack by the Indian Navy on Karachi as well. This clearly shows that we are now succeeding in surrounding them from all sides, including from the sea.) Two visuals were shown on Aaj Tak as the attack on Karachi, and both videos were found by Alt News to be old, unrelated footage.
A similar tone of reporting was adopted by Zee News anchor Ram Mohan Sharma, who said “breaking news” just came in that Karachi port had been destroyed. “Is waqt ek bohot badi khabar mil rahi hai, samundar se Pakistan par ek bada action liya gaya hai… Is waqt ki bohot badi khabar, badi jaanakari iss waqt ki Karachi port tabah kar diya gaya hai! Navsena ne, Navy ne Karachi port ko tabah kar diya hai…” (Translation: We’re getting a major update at this moment. A significant action has been taken against Pakistan from the sea. Breaking news right now, important information coming in… The Karachi port has been destroyed. The Navy, the Indian Navy, has destroyed the Karachi port.)
The Karachi port had been ‘destroyed’ in several other newsrooms on the night of May 9, including India Today, TV9 Bharatvarsh and ABP News. The following morning, around 8:40 am, the Karachi Port Trust issued an official statement calling the Indian media reports “completely false and baseless,” and confirmed that the port was “operating normally and securely.”
The Karachi port claim is only the tip of the iceberg, as far as media misreports go. For instance, Zee News, News18, News18 Bihar Jharkhand, OneIndia and propaganda outlet Sudarshan News all claimed that Islamabad was under attack by the Indian armed forces, which soon turned to Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s house being under attack. Zee News even claimed that Sharif had surrendered. However, there is not a single credible source from either country confirming the attacks on Sharif’s house. Nor is there any report or credible information on PM Sharif surrendering.
Several mainstream media outlets, including Republic, CNN News18, ABP News, and Zee News, reported that a Lashkar terrorist named Qari Mohammad Iqbal had been killed during Operation Sindoor. The reports went to the extent of claiming that Iqbal was in hiding in Kotli, Pakistan, one of the locations targeted by the Indian armed forces in the operation. However, Alt News found that Iqbal, a resident of Poonch in Kashmir, was one of the civilians killed during the cross-border shelling by Pakistan. He was a teacher at a local high school in Poonch. Iqbal’s family also issued a statement condemning the blatant misinformation that was amplified by media channels. Our detailed report can be read here.
Click to view slideshow.
News outlets Mathrubhumi, DNA, OneIndia and Great Andhra published articles claiming Asim Munir, chief of the army staff, Pakistan, had resigned and was to be replaced by General Sahir Shamshad Mirza. Like the aforementioned examples, there was not a single credible source that affirmed this. Fact-checking outlet BoomLive spoke to Pakistani news outlet Dawn’s deputy editor Zahrah Mazhar who said that there was no indication of Munir’s resignation.
ALSO READ: Mass resignations in Pakistan army after Pahalgam attack? Media outlets’ reportage based on fabricated letter
Media outlets Firstpost, NDTV, Free Press Journal and The Statesman also reported on a deepfake video showing Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the director general of inter-services public relations (ISPR) of the Pakistan armed forces, admitting to losing two fighter jets amidst an escalating military conflict as a real statement.
Alongside these, several unverified videos and images were aired by mainstream media outlets. For example, a four-year-old video of Israel’s air defence system, the Iron Dome, was played by news channels with varied claims. Zee News, Times Now Navbharat and others aired the video linking it to the purported Karachi port destruction, while some others, like Aaj Tak, aired the clip claiming it to be visuals from the attack on Jaisalmer.
Again, a video broadcast by ABP Ananda and TV9 Bangla, among others, purportedly showing the situation in Pakistan after a strike by the Indian armed forces turned out to be three-month-old footage from a jet crash site in Philadelphia.
For reasons unknown, PIB Fact Check chose not to debunk any of these, though these falsehoods were consumed by crores of Indian television viewers. When one considers that most of these channels run pro-government propaganda in the name of news round the year, one begins to wonder if there was a method in the madness.
Even as the Indian mainstream channels drew flak from the international media for incessantly putting out false information during the conflict, BJP platformed Sushant Sinha, the consulting editor of Times Now NavBharat, to justify the blatant lies. In a video tweeted from the official X handle of BJP, Sinha slammed the ‘propaganda’ by those who called out misreports by the mainstream media. The falsehoods should be acceptable in national interest, Sinha observed, repeatedly referring to those who exposed outrageous falsehoods peddled by the media as a ‘two-rupee ecosystem’. With each passing minute in the 9-minute monologue, Sinha’s desperate defence of fake news, though fervent, became more and more bizarre. The ‘consulting editor’ went to the length of saying that when a ‘breaking news’ would come in, if the anchor would be live on air, he would have no time to verify it. Even if it turned out to be false, asking counter questions was an ‘anti-national’ agenda’, he declared.
ALSO READ: The fictional strikes on the Karachi port and what it says about Indian media
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