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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 video showing Indian Army carrying three bodies of suspected terrorists was an act of revenge for the Pulwama attack.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a viral video showing Indian Army personnel carrying three bodies said to be those of suspected terrorists. The video was presented on social media as an act of revenge for the Pulwama attack. The review distinguishes the footage itself from the claim about when and why the operation took place: it says the video’s content was legitimate, but that the operation did not happen after Pulwama as the posts claimed. (S1: “While the content of the video is legitimate, the operation however did not occur after the Pulwama attack, as claimed on social media.”) To check the chronology, the review cites SM Hoax Slayer’s finding that the video’s earliest YouTube upload was on 9 December 2018. Because that upload predated the Pulwama attack, the footage could not document an operation carried out afterward in revenge for it. The review therefore rejects the claimed connection between the video and Pulwama, rather than disputing that the footage showed a real operation. (S1: “SM Hoax Slayer reported that the earliest upload of the video on YouTube was on 9 December 2018, proving that operation in the video happened much before the Pulwama attack.”) The review also identifies a possible source of confusion: it says an encounter occurred on 18 February involving three Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists, including the alleged mastermind of the Pulwama attack. It reports that the encounter also killed an Army Major, three jawans, a policeman and a civilian. That separate, later event is not evidence that the operation shown in the viral video was retaliation for Pulwama. (S1: “On 18 February, there was an encounter between the Indian Army and three Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists, among which included the alleged mastermind of the Pulwama attack. Three JeM members were killed, along with an Army Major, three jawans, one policeman and one civilian.”)

FACTLYWar & conflict

Under the UPA government, in 10 years, 171 soldiers died but under the NDA government, in 4 years, 1250 soldiers died.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a Facebook post comparing deaths during the UPA’s 10 years in government with deaths during the NDA’s first 4 years, and attributes figures of 171 and 1,250 to those periods. The review says the post arose amid political debate following the Pulwama attack, and tests the figures by examining deaths among security personnel in Jammu and Kashmir and the North-Eastern States. The figures reported in the review do not support the post’s comparison. It gives totals of 1,249 security personnel deaths under the UPA across 10 years and 378 under the NDA across 4 years. On those figures, the NDA total is lower, not higher. The excerpt does not provide the underlying records or explain how the totals were compiled, so it does not allow independent assessment of the data collection from the information supplied here. The review also cautions that directly comparing totals across periods of different lengths can be misleading. It says the yearly trend shown in its graphs declined from 2004, with a slight upward trend in the last few years. The supplied excerpt does not include the graphs or annual figures, so that trend cannot be examined in more detail here.