Did the Indian Army really retaliate for the death of Jawan M Sreejith?

July 18, 2021 Suramya Sunilraj

Spread the truth:

A video circulating on Facebook claims to show the Indian Army setting fire to a house in retaliation for the death of M Sreejith, a Malayalee soldier killed on July 8, 2021 in Kashmir’s Sundarbani sector. In the background of a video showing a burning house, fireworks can clearly be heard.

You can view the video here.

FACEBOOK

The viral video was posted with a caption that in Malayalam read ” ഇരുട്ടിന്റെ മറവിൽ അപ്രതീക്ഷിതമായ നടന്ന ചതിക്ക് പട്ടാപ്പകൽ 17 മദ്രാസ്സിന്റെ മറുപടി. 🔥നമ്മുടെ പ്രിയപ്പെട്ട ശ്രീജിത്ത്‌ സാറിന്റെയും സഹപ്രവർത്തകന്റെയും ജീവനെടുത്ത തീവ്രവാദി തെമ്മാടികൾക്ക് എതിരെ പട്ടാപ്പകൽ ഇന്ത്യൻ ആർമിയുടെ ചുണക്കുട്ടികൾ…

തീവ്രവാദികളുടെ പക്കൽ നിന്ന് അനേകം ആയുധങ്ങളും പിടികൂടി…#IndianArmy💛“

Translation: 17 Madras’ Broad Daylight’s reply to an unexpected betrayal in the dark.🔥The Indian Army’s attack on the terrorist thugs who took the lives of our beloved Sreejith Sir and his colleague …

Many weapons seized from militants …#IndianArmy💛

TRUTH

This video is of an attack which took place 2 months before the unfortunate death of the soldiers in the viral claim.

This video is of an encounter on May 12, 2021 in Vailoo village, Kokernag region, Anantnag district, Kashmir where three local Lashker-e-Taiba militants were killed.

The claim made in the videos description is false, as these are visuals from the Kokernag encounter in Kashmir and not videos of the army retaliating for the July 8, 2021 jawan killings in Kashmir’s Sundarbani sector.

We retrieved numerous keyframes from the video by performing a reverse image search on the video using InVid. This took us to a Facebook post dated May 12, 2021 that read “Visuals from kokernag gunfight in which three militants were killed on Tuesday morning.”

Archive

Upon further investigation, we identified an article published on May 12, 2021 by Gulf Today, which featured an image from the viral video.

This video was first released on the YouTube channel of the Daily Excelsior, a Jammu-based newspaper, on May 12, 2021, with exclusive rights.

Naib Subedar Sreejith M and Sepoy Maruprolu Jaswanth Reddy were killed in a firing on July 8th 2021 in the at Sundarbani sector of Jammu & Kashmir. The Additional Directorate General of Public Information had put out a tweet offering condolences to the Families.

General MM Naravane #COAS & all ranks #salute the supreme sacrifice of Nb Sub Sreejith M & Sep Maruprolu Jaswanth Reddy and offer deepest condolences to the families.#IndianArmy https://t.co/4HllBLns2t

— ADG PI – INDIAN ARMY (@adgpi) July 9, 2021