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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

War & conflict fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about war & conflict. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

5,848 published reviews in this topic

THE QUINTWar & conflict

The image showing rows of dead bodies is from India’s retaliation of Pulwama.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a picture of rows of dead bodies circulated as evidence that the Indian army killed terrorists in retaliation for the 14 February Pulwama attack. The Quint examined the image’s provenance and reports that the photograph was credited to Getty Images, which dated it to 19 December 2014—more than four years before Pulwama. Getty’s description identified the bodies as those of “alleged Taliban militants” following a military operation in northwestern Hangu, Pakistan, rather than people killed by India after Pulwama. The review also gives the immediate context for the 2014 scene. It says officials reported that Pakistan had hanged two convicted militants, in the first executions since 2008, following the Taliban attack on Peshawar’s Army Public School on 16 December 2014. The Quint further notes that a Twitter post from 2014 contained the same image, supporting the conclusion that it was circulating before the Pulwama attack and could not depict a later Indian retaliation. The review therefore rejects the image’s claimed connection to Pulwama: its credited date, location and reported context place it in Pakistan in December 2014, not in an Indian military response after the February 2019 attack. The excerpt describes the photograph’s original credit and a pre-Pulwama social-media post; it does not provide a link or further details for that post.