A 2018 video of army personnel from India and Pakistan dancing together in Russia is viral with a false claim that it shows celebrations at the inauguration of the Kartarpur corridor.
The Kartarpur corridor is an important link connecting two holy shrines of Sikhs - the Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Punjab with Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, just about four km from the international border.
BOOM received the video on our WhatsApp helpline (7700906111) from a reader asking about its authenticity.
In the one minute and 26 second video, soldiers from both countries can be seen dancing together. The soldiers are then joined by a few folk dancers and a few civilians.
The text of the video claims the following: "Good gesture. Both pak n Indian armies are celebrating together at the opening ceremony of Kartarpur way. Wah. History."
The video is being shared on Facebook with the same caption.
Fact Check
Although viral posts claim the video is from the opening ceremony of the Kartarpur corridor, the inauguration of the corridor is set to take place on November 9, 2019 as announced by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. Read more about it here.
BOOM broke the video into key frames and did a reverse image search in Yandex. We were directed to 2018 reports of Peaceful Mission 2018 program conducted by the Central Military Commission of Russia. These news reports featured same viral video. Read the news reports here and here
The same video was also aired by ABP News on August 29th, 2018 .
The video was captured when India and Pakistan soldiers concluded an anti-terror drill at Chebarkul, a town in Russia. There are several tweets from last year mentioning the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation or SCO 2018 exercise.
The joint military exercise involved eight countries of Shanghai Co-operation Organisation. The SCO members include China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. This particular celebration was initiated by Indian Army and the event was known to be ‘Bharatiya divas’ where all the troops from the member countries were present and was held in the month of August 2018.
#SCO countries reherse for assault on terrorism in Chebarkul military ranges of #Russia - @abpnewshindi reporthttps://t.co/eJBLJfZh5b@mfa_russia @mod_russia @MEAIndia @DefenceMinIndia @IndEmbMoscow