Video of Handwara attackers being alive is false and old
A video of two men dressed in camouflage clothing and protective gear is being shared on social media.
Claim 1: “Big breaking Handwara attackers are alive.”
Claim 2: “Pak brothers at Handuwara encounter, with alive takbeer”
(Note: Takbeer usually means ‘God is great’, though in this context it may mean ‘by God’s grace)
The claim refers to the attacks on the CRPF checkpoint in Handwara, North Kashmir where three CRPF personnel attained martyrdom and two militants were killed. A 14-year-old civilian also lost his life in the crossfire. The attack was the third one in the span of a month.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=692526561535070
This video, posted by a page called Tawan Chu Duniya, was shared more than 1,000 times and garnered over 50,000 views.
(Archived)
(Archived)
This video was viewed more than 31,000 times and was shared by over 350 users.
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Truth
The comments section under the viral videos helped us verify the truth about the video. Many users commented on the video, saying that the video was from April 13, 2019, and that these were the militants were killed in an encounter in Shopian, Kashmir. One of the comments also mentioned that one of these men was called Shah Jahan.
(Comments under the videos on the pages Save Humanity (top) and Kashmir Samachar (bottom))
After performing a keyword search with the terms “Shopian”, “encounter”, “April 2019” and “Shah Jahan”, we found multiple news reports about two Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militants being killed in Shopian in April 2019. These reports identified the militants as Shah Jahan Mir from Amshipora, Shopian and Abid Wagay of Rawalpora, Shopian.
To confirm their identities, we looked up their names and found their images. A local news website, Jammu Vision, wrote an article about the encounter and used Shah-i-Jahan Mir’s photograph for their article.
We also found a tweet by user Vishal J, which identified both the militants.
Operation All Out 2019
Encounter no.30#Gahand #shopian
2 Terrorists killed
1️⃣Shahijahan,Amshipora-JeM
2️⃣Abid wagay,rawalpora-JeM
🇮🇳👍🏻34RR,14BN CRPF,SOG
66 terrorists killed (2019)
Salute to Security Forces🇮🇳🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/pnGxgneyoH
— 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐥 𝐉 (@VishalDJ4) April 13, 2019
On comparing these images to the militants in the video, we found that they were the same people, thus confirming their identities.
We also found videos on YouTube with images/videos of these men. The videos, with the words “Shaheed Abid Bhai” (Abid Wagay) or “Shaheed Shahijahan Bhai” (Shah Jahan or Shah-i-Jahan Mir) in their titles, were posted by channels that primarily have pro-Kashmir liberation content. (“Shaheed” is a word used for Muslim martyrs.) The videos were posted after the encounter on April 13, 2019.
Shah-i-Jahan Mir
(Link)
(Link)
Abid Wagay
This screenshot shows both men together
(Link)
We were unable to find the source of the video but can conclude that the video is not of the militants who attacked the CRPF base in Handwara, as the people in this video were killed in April 2019.
