On Saturday, a Twitter account by the name of Eva Zheng claiming to be from China (where Twitter is officially blocked), tweeted a video with claims that in the Galwan Valley standoff between Indian troops and the Chinese PLA, the casualty breakdown of PLA stood at 0 deaths and 5 injured.
https://twitter.com/evazhengll/status/1274299110296780800?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwThe tweet, which now stands deleted, claimed that 10 Indian troops who were injured in the standoff were ‘assisted’ by the PLA and administered hyperbaric oxygen therapy at a PLA post.
This tweet was ‘liked’ by senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor. It was accompanied by a dubious video where one can see oxygen being supplied to some men in uniform.
Along with Shashi Tharoor, Congress-friendly ecosystem also came together to propagate this video.
https://twitter.com/bainjal/status/1274340386240999424?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwThe tweet of ‘Eva Zhang’ was spread as official Chinese casualty breakdown by abusive troll masquerading as a journalist, Swati Chaturvedi. Chaturvedi even retweeted a tweet by fellow employee with Guardian who had also shared the dubious tweet and video.
‘Professor’ Ashok Swain, too joined in in propagating this news.
https://twitter.com/ashoswai/status/1274381306319814664?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwRecently, Swain had said that he wants ‘Muslim Lives Matter’ protests in India along the lines of violent protests in the USA following the death of an African American man George Floyd.
However, the information as well as the video of ‘Indian soldiers being administered oxygen by Chinese PLA’ is fake.
Fake video of PLA administering oxygen to Indian soldiers
The video attached with the tweet which claimed that the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers were administering oxygen to injured Indian soldiers is also fake.
The video was uploaded on a website called bilibili.com which, as per Google Translation, showed video of hyperbaric oxygen chamber in the Golden Army of Tibetan Armed Police. The above video was uploaded on 14th February 2017.
Chinese casualties at Galwan Valley
Chinese state media Global Times in an article published on 18th June had claimed that the Galwan Valley standoff is one of the biggest military confrontation between India and China in four decades which has led to casualties on both the sides. Evidently, since it is one of the biggest confrontation, it is quite obvious that the figure of 5 casualties on Chinese side is grossly understated. Moreover, Indian sources have indicated that the casualties figure on the Chinese side is upward of 40 at least.
And while the Chinese themselves, without disclosing the real figure, have accepted that there has been casualties on their side as well, some Indians are desperate to show that the Chinese are good samaritan helping injured Indian soldiers after inflicting the injury and that they don’t have any damages in the violent standoff.