From the fall of Islamabad to an attack on Karachi: 5 fake stories that Indian TV news ran with

On Thursday night, as the Pakistani military launched several attacks along India’s western border, news channels in the country led the charge with a barrage of unverified and often outrageously false information.

In line with their jingoistic coverage of India’s response to the Pahalgam terror attack, most channels and their social media handles not just claimed victory for the Indian armed forces but also the destruction of Pakistani cities and its defence establishment.

Many of these claims were made on air, sometimes citing unidentified sources and sometimes without.

Scroll lists some of the more outlandish stories from this stream of misinformation.

1. ‘Army chief Asif Munir arrested’

Early in the morning on May 9, Zee News published a story claiming that “reports” had emerged that Pakistani army chief Asif Munir had been “taken into custody by Pakistani authorities” because he had been working on “his personal agenda”.

Not only that, several channels of the network claimed that “General Sahir Shamshad Mirza was being considered as Munir’s possible replacement”.

Zee News was not alone. The ABP news channel reported that the Pakistan army chief had been arrested, citing unidentified sources. “Asim Munir ko hirasat mei liya gaya,” read the caption of its YouTube channel, which has still not been edited. Both Thanthi TV, a Tamil news channel, and Zee Telugu News ran similar reports.

At 12.01 am on May 9, Times Now’s Twitter handle claimed that Munir had been dislodged in a coup. There has been no confirmation from Indian or Pakistani media of the alleged coup against Munir or his arrest.

2. ‘Karachi port destroyed’

Around 11 pm on Thursday, several Hindi, English and regional news channels began reporting that the Indian navy had opened another front against Pakistan. Some said that the Navy had “attacked and destroyed” the Karachi port. All of these claims were made either without attribution or by citing “sources”.

For example, ABP Ananda passed off a 37-second clip of an old Philadelphia plane crash scene as the aftermath of a strike by INS Vikrant on the Karachi port during their live broadcast, Alt News reported.

On India Today, anchor Gaurav Sawant triumphantly reported that it was the first time since 1971 that the Indian Navy had attacked Karachi.

The Telugu news channel, NTV, reported that the Karachi port had been attacked by India in a retaliatory drone and missile strike launched from INS Vikrant.

The Republic Bangla anchor repeated the claim and helpfully added that 26 Indian warships had surrounded the Karachi port. “Pakistan will be finished today,” she said.

3. A fidayeen attack that was not

Amid all this sabre-rattling, Aaj Tak news anchors, Sweta Singh and Anjana Om Kashyap, went on air to report that terrorists had begun a “fidayeen hamla”, or a suicide attack on an army unit in Rajouri. They did not attribute this information to any official. Nor were other details forthcoming.

Later, Army officials told the news agency, ANI, that such reports “were completely false”.

4. ‘Pakistani cities destroyed, PM in hiding’

A persistent theme of the misinformation campaign run from TV studios was the destruction and humiliation of Pakistan.

Regional channels were not left behind in this campaign.

Assamese news channel News Live, which has one of the highest viewership in the state, reported that 12 cities in Pakistan had been destroyed in an Indian attack. Not only that, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was hiding in a bunker to save his life, the channel claimed.

Assamese news channels NKTV, Pratidin Time, among others, repeated the claim of Sharif being in hiding.

Zee News reported that Pakistan’s capital Islamabad has already been captured and that the army had surrendered. Times Now Nava Bharat, too, reported the Indian Army had entered Pakistan and urged the Indian Navy to attack and set fire to Karachi.

NDTV reported that a large number of Pakistani tanks were marching towards the Rajasthan border. However, the post was soon taken down.

5. Pakistan’s fighter jets ‘down’, and ‘a pilot captured’

Several news handles uploaded a deepfake video of a Pakistani Army General, admitting the loss of two fighter jets.

The Deccan Chronicle website uploaded the AI generated fake video on its Twitter handle, claiming that “India shot down two Pakistani JF-17s and one F-16 on May 8” and said it had been “confirmed by DGISPR, spokesperson for Pakistan armed forces”.

Even India Today reported this claim during a discussion, citing a Pakistani army official.

Many TV channels like Times Now, Republic World, News 9 and India TV News, reported that a Pakistani pilot had been captured on Thursday night.

Republic World attributed the story to unidentified sources saying that “the pilot of the F-16 fighter jet had been captured by Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Akhnoor”.

However, even 13 hours later, there has been no official statement by the Indian authorities on these claims.
The Pakistan information minister denied the capture of the pilot describing it as “totally false, concocted”.