A 2018 video from Colombia showing a group of men in an escalating confrontation with military personnel is being falsely linked to a recent incident in Nagaland where civilians were killed in a botched anti-insurgency operation by Indian security forces.
The video is viral days after at least 14 civilians were shot dead by security forces in Mon district of Nagaland on Sunday. While the government has promised a high-level probe, the security forces called it a case of 'mistaken identity' after security operations went awry. The army is said to have attempted to ambush a vehicle based on intelligence inputs that suggested it was ferrying insurgents who were part of the banned National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang) faction. But in a case of what the Army has called mistaken identity, it fired at a similar looking vehicle which was ferrying villagers. The incident led to widespread outrage in the area and was followed by violent clashes between villagers and the security officials in which a soldier was killed.The government has appealed for peace in the state.The video is being shared with a false claim that it shows villagers attacking security forces and forcing them to retaliate.
The claim reads, "REMEMBER INDIA Soldiers don't fire unless attacked upon, even then they warn first. See this video, you will know"
FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the video is from Colombia and not Nagaland. Furthermore, the video is from 2018.
A reverse image search on one of the key frames showed results to a YouTube video uploaded on January 7, 2018 with a caption in Spanish that translates to, "Colombian army patrol was attacked by supposed indigenous people?" (Original text in Spanish - Patrulla del ejército dé Colombia fue agredida por supuestos indígenas?)
View the video here
We then ran a search in Spanish using keywords from the title of the YouTube video and found a news story published in El Tiempo on January 14, 2018 with the headline translated in English, "Prosecutor's Office will file charges against 2 indigenous people for an incident with the military". According to the El Tiempo report, the video was "a clash between communities and soldiers, in the north of Cauca." The report detailed that a fight between members of the indigenous community and the national army of Colombia was recorded on video and both parties had released statements.
The report carried a statement from the Valle del Cauca Inter-union Committee saying it described the events, "as disrespect and contempt for the Army, while communities say they have been subjected to intimidation by the military and armed civilians."
The report further added that the local government body in Cauca would take action against two members of the indigenous community and file charges against them.
Another media outlet Cable Noticias also uploaded the same video from their verified YouTube account on January 5, 2018 with the caption, "Confrontation between indigenous and military in Corinto, Cauca"