Viral video showing Pakistanis slaughtering cow on Indian flag is real, but it is old

As the anti-India sentiment in Pakistan has reached an all-time high following abrogation of Articles 370 and 35A by India, social media has seen lots of action in this regard. While many Pakistanis, including federal ministers, are sharing old videos from different places claiming to be latest videos from Jammu and Kashmir, an old video from Pakistan has emerged which is being spread on social media saying it is from 15^th August this year.

The very disturbing video shows a group of men slaughtering a cow on a large Indian flag. They are also seen holding a flag of Pakistan, and the men celebrate after the Indian flag is desecrated by the spilt blood of the slaughtered animal. Social media posts circulating the video clips claims that it happened on India’s Independent day, presumably protesting against abrogation of Article 370 and Article 35A by the Indian government.

Graphic warning. Pakistanis slaughtering a cow on the Indian flag to “own” and insult India on its independence day. This is not a normal society. They are a stain on this planet. They do not deserve our taxes or any foreign aid. pic.twitter.com/bIiCYADoJz

— Imam of Peace (@Imamofpeace) August 19, 2019

We tried to found out whether the video is indeed from Pakistan, and whether it happened actually last week. Doing an online search for the video, it was found that although it is a real incident which happened in Pakistan, it didn’t happen on 15^th August. The cow was slaughtered on an India flag earlier this year, probably in the month of February. Images of the same incident can be seen on a Pakistani website where they were uploaded on 1^st March this year.

The captions with the photographs say that members of Pakistan Sunni Tehreek slaughtered the cow as part of their protest against India, alleging Indian aggression in Kashmir and challenging the sovereignty of Pakistan. The protest was held at Hyderabad in Pakistan.

Although we could not locate the video at an earlier date, the comparison between the video and images establish that they are from the same incident. The persons involved in the ghastly act, the flags of both the countries, the cow, all of them are the same in both the video and the photos.

Therefore, it can be concluded that although a cow was indeed slaughtered on a large India flag, it didn’t happen last week after India’s decision to fully integrate Jammu and Kashmir into India, but it had happened earlier this year. Although the exact date of the incident is not mentioned in the Pakistani website, probably it happened on 4^th February, during the protests by Pakistan Sunni Tehreek on the eve of Kashmir day. Photographs published by Associated Press of Pakistan shows the protesters of the burning a similar flex printed Indian flag with the exact red cross on it. They had printed multiple copies of the flag, therefore it can be presumed that one of them was used for the slaughter of the cow, while others were burned.