Dunya News, a TV news channel of Pakistan had yesterday made a sensational claim that suggested that the current standoff between India and China had blown up into a full-scale war. In a report peppered with images on its website, the news channel claimed that China had killed 158 Indian soldiers and left many more injured.
The report on channel’s website had pictures of a few military trucks on fire and some other pictures showing destroyed construction in an unidentified area, which they claimed as destroyed Indian Army bunkers. A couple of pictures also showed some Indian soldiers apparently taking away injured soldiers for treatment.
Dunya News even made a video report for their TV channel where the reporter was seen giving “exclusive” information about the attack. China had fired rockets into the Indian territory killing over hundred, if the Pakistani news fantasy was to be believed.
The nature of the report was always suspect as no other international media outlet reported about it. However, since the pictures were getting circulated on the social media, India rubbished the claims of Pakistani media and clarified that no such incident had taken place.
“Such reports are utterly baseless, malicious and mischievous,” the official spokesperson of Ministry of External Affairs, Gopal Baglay had clarified yesterday when asked to comment.
Now after India’s denunciation, China too has denounced the Pakistani media reports and termed those ‘fake news’.
People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, has reported to have undertaken an investigation and rejected the claims of Dunya News. Global Times, another state run media outlet, has found the Pakistani media report “groundless and fake”. Chinese embassy in India too is reported to have denounced the reports as per the Chinese media.
Following this all-round humiliation, the Pakistani website has taken off all the pictures form their report and put a “file” picture over there, thereby admitting that they had put up random pictures they could find on internet and compiled a report. However, the commentary in the report and video claiming death of Indian soldiers is still up and running, pretty shamelessly.
