After the tension between India and Pakistan escalated following India’s air strike on terror camps in Pakistan, Indian defence forces have shot down several Pakistani drones that had violated Indian air space. Now in a desperate attempt to show that India is also trying to spy on Pakistan using drones, and Pakistan has shot down such drones, Pakistani media have resorted to spreading fake news.
Today one journalist working with Pakistani media house Dawn posted a tweet saying that Pakistan Army has shot down an Indian spy drone in Kot Kotehra village in Khuiratta sector of Kotli district in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Along with the tweet, a image of the downed drone was included.
#India‘s spy drone shot down by #Pakistan army in Kot Kotehra village along the #LoC in #Khuiratta sector of #AJK‘s #Kotli district on Sunday, according to locals pic.twitter.com/u6EHWKdUL4
— Tariq Naqash (@TariqNaqash) March 11, 2019
Soon the same news along with the image by several users from Pakistan on social media.
But the image used by Naqash does not show any Indian drone, and the image is not from Pakistan. A simple reverse image search on Google using the image shows that it is an old photo of an American drone which had crashed in Arizona, USA. The drone in the image is a Predator B “Reaper” drone, which had crashed in 2006 while on routine border patrol. The Reaper is an unmanned combat aerial vehicle which carries several weapons like laser-guided bombs, air-to-ground missiles etc.
India does not use American drones, while DRDO is working on developing indigenous drones, at present IAI Heron drones from Israel are used by Indian armed forces. The Heron looks quite different from the Reaper, as both have different designs.
This is not the first time Pakistani media has published news to show imaginary victory over India. They had also claimed that the Indian Air Force helicopter that had crashed due to a technical fault on 27th February was shot down by Pakistani Air Force. Pakistani media also had claimed that two Indian jets were shot down by Pakistan, while hiding the fact one Pakistani F-16 jet was shot down by Indian planes and India had lost only one jet while retaliating Pakistani attempt to bomb Indian defence bases.
