On Friday, 22 February, a Facebook page called ‘ModiNama’ and few other put up a post saying that Pakistan had shot down one of their own fighter planes, mistaking it for an Indian aircraft.
The post, which is titled ‘Out of Fear, Pakistan Army Mistakenly Shoots Down Its Own Aircraft’, is accompanied by a photo of the aircraft that was allegedly shot down.
The text of the post says that there is a lot of fear among Pakistanis with regard to India in the wake of the Pulwama attack, adding that there were rumours that an Indian fighter plane had entered Pakistani territory and dropped two bombs in the border areas. It goes on the explain that in reality, the plane was a Pakistani aircraft that had gone to spy on India.
The post had nearly 950 shares within an hour of being uploaded and nearly 1.5k reactions. Many people had commented on the video laughing at the fear that India had struck into the heart of Pakistan.
The Quint website ran a search of the title of the post ‘Out of Fear, Pakistan Army Mistakenly Shoots Down Its Own Aircraft’. The very first result that came out of the Google search was a news report carrying the exact same headline, by an outlet called TheFauxy.
One read of the article shows that the Facebook post was inspired by the text of the article by the outlet. The article claims that Imran Khan and the Pakistan Army are both spending sleepless nights and in a state of panic had shot down their own plane. The article also mentioned that a Pakistani aircraft had been hovering over India to keep track of the movements of the Indian Army.
Even the photo used in the Facebook post was picked up from the image carried in the article.
A short scroll down to the bottom of the web page cleared up the reality of this portal. In a very clear message under the About Us section, it says that TheFauxy is a satire web portal and that the content of the website is completely fictional. It also carries an advisory: “Readers are advised not to confuse the articles of TheFauxy as genuine and true.”
The image used in the article is of an F-16 jet that had been destroyed in Belgium in October 2018.
Open link to read detail of incident: Belgian F-16 completely destroyed due to Technician mistake
Belgian F-16 completely destroyed due to Technician mistake. The Belgian Air Force F-16 fighter had burned in a fire during maintenance when technician accidental opened fire from another F-16 fighter fighter
The F-16 was destroyed, 2 people were injured. Another F-16 has minor damage. The incident happened at around 2:10 pm local time on Thursday.
Two technicians who were performing maintenance on the plane when the explosion occurred were injured. They are suffering from hearing problems following the blast, SudInfo reported.
