5 Fake News Stories About Pakistan That Aired on Indian TV: From ‘Fall of Islamabad’ to ‘Attack on Karachi’

5 Fake News Stories About Pakistan That Aired on Indian TV: On Thursday night, as the Pakistani military was conducting multiple strikes along India's western border, Pakistan's news channels led the display of a landslide of unsubstantiated and often incredibly ludicrous stories.

Most major channels and their social media handles not only announced the reasons for triumph for the Indian armed forces but also purportedly the bombing of Pakistani cities and its defence organization, consistent with their jingoistic coverage of India's response to the Pahalgam terror attack.

Most of these were pronounced or cited in the air as Anonymous sources and sometime without even that.

Scroll has a list of some of the wilder narratives from this deluge of misinformation.

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1. ‘Army chief Asif Munir arrested’

In the early hours of May 9, Zee News published a story that stated, reports have indicated that, "The Pakistani army chief Asif Munir has been taken into custody by Pakistani authorities for working on his personal agenda".

Not only this, but various channels of the network also mentioned that General Sahir Shamshad Mirza was being looked at as Munir's potential successor.

Zee News was not an outlier. The ABP news channel stated that the Pakistan army chief had been arrested in reference to unnamed sources. "Asim Munir ko hirasat mei liya gaya," said the caption of its YouTube channel, which is still remaining unedited. The Tamil news channel Thanthi TV and the Zee Telugu News both reported similarly.

On May 9 at 12.01 am, Times Now's Twitter account posted that Munir had been deposed in a coup. Neither Indian nor Pakistani media have reported any confirmation of the alleged coup against Munir or his arrest.

2. ‘Karachi port destroyed’

Around 11 pm on Thursday, news channels in Hindi, English and various regional languages began reporting that the Indian navy has opened another front against Pakistan. Some claimed that the Navy had "attacked ad destroyed" the Karachi port. All of these assertions were made either unattributed or according to "sources."

For instance, on ABP Ananda during its live coverage, a 37-second clip of an old Philadelphia plane crash scene was passed off as the aftermath of a strike by INS Vikrant on the Karachi port, as reported by Alt News.

On India Today, anchor Gaurav Sawant reported triumphantly that it was the first time since 1971 that the Indian Navy had "attacked" Karachi.

The Telugu-language news channel, NTV, reported that the Karachi port was attacked by India in retaliation for the terrorist threat to India's soldiers in Kashmir. NTV reported even more news as part of its story. It reported that the INS Vikrant launched a retaliatory drone and missile strike against Pakistan at Karachi port.

Republic Bangla anchor reiterated NTV's report and added "to further this" India has surrounded Karachi's port with its 26 warships. "Pakistan will be finished today," she finished her report.

3. A fidayeen attack that was not

In the midst of this sabre rattling, Aaj Tak news anchors, Sweta Singh and Anjana Om Kashyap, went on air to report that terrorists have completed a "fidayeen hamla," or a suicide attack on an army unit in Rajouri. They did not refer to any agency. They offered no further details, even missing the opportunity to locate Rajouri.

Later, Army officials told the news agency, ANI, that such reports “were completely false”.

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4. ‘Pakistani cities destroyed, PM in hiding’

A continuing theme in this propaganda, from our TV studios was to promote a story of destruction and humiliation of Pakistan.

Regional channels were not to be left behind in it also.

News Live, a channel in every sense supreme in Assam, in fact it is one of the most watched news channels in the state, reported on its news program that stated those 12 cities in Pakistan were landing by one of Indian attacks. In a coup to deceive News Live also stated that Sharif was hiding in a bunker in Pakistan to save his life.

In fact, other Assamese news channels NKTV, Pratidin Time, among many other reached from News Live took the claim that Shehbaz Sharif was hiding.

Zee News announced that Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, had already fallen into the hands of the Indians, with the army surrendering. Times Now Nava Bharat also stated that "the Indian Army has taken over Pakistan" and stated that the Indian navy should bomb and torch Karachi. NDTV stated that numerous Pakistani tanks moved towards the Rajasthan border. Although, the post was removed shortly after.

5. Pakistan’s fighter jets ‘down’, and ‘a pilot captured’

Multiple news handles shared a deepfake video of a Pakistani army general admitting to the loss of two fighter jets.

The Deccan Chronicle website shared the AI generated fake video via its Twitter handle stating that "India shot down two Pakistani JF-17s and one F-16 jet on May 8, confirmed by DGISPR spokesperson for Pakistan Armed Forces".

Even India Today reported this on a discussion, referring to an unnamed Pakistani army official.

A lot of channels like Times Now, Republic World, News 9 and India TV News, reported that on Thursday night a Pakistani pilot had been captured.

Republic World attributed the story to unidentified sources saying that “the pilot of the F-16 fighter jet had been captured by Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Akhnoor”.

Yet now 13 hours later, there remains no official statement made by the Indian authorities on these claims.

The Pakistan info minister denied that the pilot had been captured and said it was "totally false, concocted".

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