An eight-month-old video of Border Security Force (BSF) jawans injured in a bus accident in Meghalaya has resurfaced with claims that it shows Indian soldiers who were attacked by the Chinese troops in the Galwan valley near the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
The video has been revived in the backdrop of the India China faceoff at Galwan Valley in Eastern Ladakh between June 15 and 16 which resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers including a commanding officer. Beijing has not disclosed the causalities suffered on the Chinese side yet.
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The viral clip shows injured men of the armed forces lying on the ground while a person, who is recording the incident, keeps boosting their morale. The post has been shared with a caption 'viral video from Ladakh Galwan valley Indian Army Thrashed by Chinese Army on LAC #KASHMIR'.
BOOM has chosen not to include the video because of its graphic nature. However, the post can be viewed here and its archived version can be accessed here.
The same video has been shared from several Pakistani Twitter handles with the same claim.
Fact Check
BOOM ran a reverse search on one of the key frames from the viral clip and found a Facebook post from November 2019 sharing the longer clip of the same footage.
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The post, shared from the profile 'Pak Army', has an Urdu caption which when translated, reads 'After the martyrdom of 1 civilian by the firing of the Indian Army in the Pakistani territory, the Pakistani army retaliated, the whole bus full of Indian troops was blown up. #Share the video and #Follow or #friend_Request for more videos Please. Thank you'.
(Urdu: بھارتی فوج کی پاکستانی حدود میں فائر*نگ سے 1 شہری کے شہید ہونے کے بعد پاکستانی فوج کی جوابی کاروائی، بھار*تی فو*جیوں سے بھری پوری بس اڑا دیا ویڈیو کو #شئیر کریں اور مزید ویڈیوز کے لئے#Follow یا #friend_Request کیجئے۔شکریہ)
This confirmed that the video is not related to the Galwan valley standoff between Indian and Chinese soldiers.
We further noticed that several Twitter users, in their reply to the one of the viral tweets, had mentioned that the incident is from Meghalaya and the soldiers seen in the clip 'might be the jawans of CRPF or BSF'.
We then did a keyword search with 'Meghalaya', 'BSF', 'Bus', and 'Gorge' and found several reports published in locals news portals carrying images from the accident that took place in the wee hours of October 30, 2019.
According to news reports, the unfortunate incident took place on October 30, 2019 when an over-speeding bus fell into a 100-feet deep gorge at Umtyra in East Jaintia Hills district of Meghalaya.
The bus, carrying 20 soldiers of the Border Security Force, was requisitioned by the BSF. The co-driver lost his life in the accident while the BSF personnel and the driver were shifted to North East Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, said reports.
BOOM compared the images shared in the reports with screenshots from the viral video and found them to be one and the same.
This apart, the terrain shown in the viral clip does not match with the terrains of Galwan valley where the Indo-China face off reportedly took place.