CLAIM

TRUTH

VERIFICATION AND METHODOLOGY

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THIRD AND FOURTH PHOTOS:

VERDICT

In the early hours of February 26, Indian Air Force jets struck one of the biggest terror camps of terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed in a "non-military", "pre-emptive" strike in Pakistan's Balakot . Since then, Pakistani media and social media users have been spreading misinformation and fake news, trying to pass off old photos and videos as recent ones.However, misinformation about IAF air strike in Balakot is being spread on WhatsApp groups in India and by many social media users and pages as well.A set of images, some showing massive destruction to infrastructure and some showing dead bodies, are being widely shared on WhatsApp along with messages that claim that these images show the impact of the IAF air strike. One of the messages that is being shared along with these photos read, "Yesterday's Balakot ops by India". Sample this:The same set of images are being shared on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter as well.The images being shared on WhatsApp are not digitally manipulated, but are definitely not of the impact of the IAF air strike. While some of the images are of the destruction caused by an earthquake that jolted Balakot in 2005, others are from different incidents that happened years ago.Times Fact Check ran reverse-image search on these images on Google and found that all these images are from different incidents that has no connection to the IAF air strike in Balakot.These images were clicked on October 10 and 11, 2005, after an earthquake destroyed the area on October 8, 2005. The earthquake, according to Getty Images , killed more than 23,000, injured 51,000 and made 2.5 million homeless in Pakistan. We found both the images on Getty Images, among a lot of other photos.This image is from November 3, 2014, clicked after a suicide bomb blast killed at least 55 people and injured more than 150 on Pakistani side of the Wagah Border. Here's a TOI report of the incident.We also found news reports by Reuters and CNN that carried exact same photos:Times Fact Check found that the images that are being shared widely on WhatsApp claiming that it shows the impact of IAF air strike in Pakistan's Balakot are actually from different incidents that happened in 2005 and 2014.Please verify the information you receive on WhatsApp and social media platforms before you hit those "Forward" and "Share" buttons.