How false videos blurred fact and fiction after Operation Sindoor

Hours after the Indian armed forces conducted military strikes in Pakistan in the early hours of May 7, the Indian government summoned journalists for a briefing at the National Media Centre in New Delhi.

The event began with a video that compiled clips of a few terror attacks on Indian soil since 2001 – the 2001 parliament attack, the 2002 Akshardham temple attack, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the 2016 Uri attack, the 2019 Pulwama attack and the 2025 Pahalgam attack.

“While the world embraced a new millennium, India continued to be subjected to cross-border terrorism,” said the opening text.

But the dramatic montage purportedly included a 2008 clip of an explosion in Iraq, which had been identified in the briefing as footage of the 2019 Pulwama attack.

The clip in question had been fact-checked days after the Pulwama attack by several outlets, including The Times of India, Indian Express, India Today, AltNews and the Quint, among others.

This faux pas came at a briefing where the government presented video evidence of the Indian strikes on “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to national and international audiences.

Scroll emailed the Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Defence, seeking a response to the error. The Ministry of External Affairs directed the query to the Ministry...

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