ISLAMABAD – The entire mainstream Indian media on January 9 used a doctoredvideo clip of a former Pakistani diplomat, misquoting him that Indianairstrike had killed 300 people in Balakot.

The leading Indian media outlets became a laughing stock by airing andpublishing the fake news reports based on the clipped and doctored video ofa panel discussion ofex-diplomat Zafar Hilaly, claiming that he admitted about the 300 Balakotcasualties.

The Indian media reports misquoting the TV news debate of Hilaly said,“India crossed the international border and did an act of war in which atleast 300 were reported dead.”However, the video programme ‘Agenda Pakistan’ uploaded on YouTube clearlyshows that the Indian media used the doctored video to serve its biasedagenda against Pakistan.The topic of the debate was ‘By using the vocabulary of the enemy (in thiscontext “surgical strike”), is Pakistan making its own case weak?’.

During the video clip at 4:17 minute, Zafar Hilaly begins to answer thisquestion. At about 5:14 minutes he says, (as translated in English), “Whatyou did, India was an act of war. By crossing the international boundaryIndia committed an act of war in which they intended to kill at least 300people.”

The very next sentence at 5:29 minutes of the video clip shows the diplomatstating that the Indian operation had failed — “Coincidentally, they[Pakistani people] did not die and India bombed a football field.”

In fact, prior to the portion of the segment made viral, Hilaly wasactually speaking about India’s intention to kill 300 on the Pakistani side.

At about 4:30 minutes of the video clip, he states, “It is said that yourintention was to strike at a madrassa where 300 children were studying.This means that your intention was to kill 300 people. They were not there,this [information] was wrong, it [strike] did not happen so you threw yourbomb at a football field.”

From the video transcript, it becomes clear that at no point the Pakistanidiplomat admitted that there were 300 casualties in the Balakot airstrike.

Ironically, none of the media organizations referred to the original videoin their news reports. Also, Republic and NE Times embedded a videouploaded by a Twitter user.Comparing the original video with the one embedded by Republic alsorevealed an abrupt cut around 0:7-0:9 seconds.

The word “marna (to kill)” sounds as if Hilaly said “mara (killed)”. The‘n’ pronunciation was edited out.

Hilaly’s statement right after the above claim has also been removed in theviral clip. This is where he stated that the Indian operation failed andthe air force instead bombed a football field.

Furthermore, the viral video has been inverted and screen-recorded. Theoriginal video shows the damaged trees of Balakot and the doctored videoshows a picture of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in military fatigue.

The doctored video also doesn’t feature the names of the people in thepanel and the border is pink, unlike the white border in the original video.

Zafar Hilaly in a series of tweets himself confirmed that his statement was“cut, spliced and edited”.

“The extraordinarily extent to which the Indian Govt has gone to cut,splice and edit the tape of my Hum TV appearance suggests their desperationto prove what they failed to do, namely, lend credence to Modi’s lies aboutBalacot and his farcical claims,” he said.