An image from 1950s Korean War passed off as 1967 Indo-China Nathula Conflict
The tensions between India and China have led to several viral images and posts been posted on social media. An image of two soldiers carrying a man who is visibly upset has been making rounds and is claimed to be an image from the 1967 in Nathula. The claim are that the man being carried is a Chinese soldier (Prisoner of War) who is afraid of being punished by the Army in China as he surrendered and didn’t want to go back, but the Indian Troops returned him after China lost the conflict.
The caption with the image reads, “1967 Nathula! Chinese soldier(POW) fearing punishment from #PLA for surrendering, don’t want to go back. Indian Troops returned him after #China lost the conflict and went back into its territory! #LAC #ladhakh tensions will be China’s 1971 #Bangladesh moment!”
A Twitter handle named News Line IFE Live posted the image with the above caption.He received around 320 likes and 120 retweets.
Historic Photo : 1967 Nathula! Chinese soldier(POW) fearing punishment from #PLA for surrendering, don't want to go back. Indian Troops returned him after #China lost the conflict and went back into its territory! #LAC #ladhakh tensions will be China's 1971 #Bangladesh moment! pic.twitter.com/xgaXgIXUAq
— News Line IFE 🌈Live📡 (@NewsLineIFE) May 31, 2020
Several Facebook posts also contained the picture and a similar caption.
Truth
The claim is False. An article on the website of History, known for its historical articles had the same image. The article was titled, “The Korean War Hasn’t Officially Ended. One Reason: POWs” and the caption below the image read, “Two Indian soldiers carrying a weeping Chinese POW to the exchange point in Panmunjom, North Korea, for return to the Communists after the Korean War in the early fall of 1953. He was among 65 Chinese soldiers who asked to be repatriated to their homeland”. The image was credited to Getty Images and it mentioned that the original image is from the Korean War that took place from 1950-1953.
The Getty Images website archived the original image and titled it “Two Indian soldiers carrying a weeping Chinese prisoner-of-war to the exchange point in Panmunjom, North Korea, for return to the Communists after the Korean War, 5th October 1953. He was among 65 Chinese soldiers who asked to be repatriated to their homeland”.
Therefore the image has nothing to do with the 1967 Indo-China Nathula Conflict but is from the 1950-1953 Korean War where Indian soldiers were sent as UN Peacekeeping forces.
