Clips of helicopter downing, drone attack in Myanmar falsely shared as from Manipur

New Delhi: Amid renewed violence in Manipur involving drones and missile attacks, two videos went viral on social media. One of the videos purported to show a fighter helicopter being shot down and the other showed some men operating drones seemingly carrying bombs.

The videos were shared with respective claims that the first one showed an Indian helicopter being shot down in Manipur and the second was of members of the Kuki community launching drone attacks on Meitei establishments in the strife-torn state.

However, in its investigation, the PTI Fact Check Desk found the claims to be false. Both the videos were from Myanmar and falsely shared as from Manipur.

An X user shared the video of a helicopter being shot down and wrote, "#Breaking The #Indian fighter helicopter shot down by freedom fighter in #Manipur." Meanwhile, another X user shared a video, claiming that it showed bomb attacks via drones by Kuki members on Meitei settlements. "Drone attacks on Meitei by #KukiDroneAttack #KukiWarCrimes #KukiLiesXposed #kuki," the user wrote.

To verify the claims, the PTI Fact Check Desk ran both the videos through InVid Tool search to extract keyframes, which were then ran through Google Lens.

In case of the helicopter, the Desk first noticed one of the comments mentioning that the video showed "Kachin Independence Army (KIA) shooting down a Myanmar military junta helicopter using MANPADS".

Meanwhile, the Google Lens results led the Desk to the same video uploaded by a channel named Conflict Live, whose caption read, "Kachin Independence Army (KIA) shoots down a Mi-24 of the #Myanmar Air Force using MANPADS." Scanning the search results further led to more social media posts, confirming that the video was from Myanmar.

In case of the video of drone attacks, the search results led to a YouTube video uploaded by a channel named Mandalay Free Press – MFP on June 2, 2023.

While the caption stated that the video was from Myanmar, the Desk used Google Earth to pinpoint the location, which further confirmed the location as War Tan Village of Myanmar.

Our categorical investigations on both the viral videos confirmed that they were from Myanmar and being falsely shared as from Manipur.

Authorities have been repeatedly cautioning people to be aware of misinformation shared on social media regarding law and order in the strife-torn state.