Hyderabad: The “anchor” of this “investigative story” is Stephen John Sackur, the famous BBC journalist who presents the current affairs interview programme Hard Talk. He is seated before a huge TV screen on which is playing out “never seen before” details of the Pulwama attack, and he is speaking in Urdu.
A closer scrutiny of this video shows the name of the channel to be not BBC but Burk Media, a channel based in Pakistan.
The 10-minute video tries to prove that Pakistan had no links with the Pulwama attack which claimed the lives of 40 CRPF jawans. It tries its best to raise doubts about the attack and seeks to convince its audience that India itself is behind the attack.
The security establishment in India is going all out to foil Pakistani propaganda by putting out counter videos to expose the lies being spread by the neighbouring country’s media, which is particularly aimed at Kashmiri youth.
Ever since the Pulwama attack and the subsequent air strikes in Balakote, security agencies are taking it upon themselves to counter what they say is propaganda and are putting out counter videos.
The point by point rebuttal in the counter videos, through a voice over, pinpoints the frames where image morphing and image distortion has been done to confuse the viewer.
A source in the security establishment told Deccan Chronicle that Burk Media’s “investigative story” was something that security agencies took serious note of and decided to hit back.
“An assessment of the ground situation in the Valley and some parts of the country indicates that a few people and groups, particularly youngsters, are latching on to this propaganda. Therefore the counter was very necessary,'' they disclosed.
To begin with, security agencies (in the counter video) first busted the lie that it was BBC journalist Stephen Sackur who presented the story for Burke Media. It is not known if Sackur himself is aware that his images were used by Burk Media.
The Burk video draws attention to the logo of the Jaish-e-Mohammed flag, saying it does not match with the font of the original logo. To this, the commentator in the counter video wonders whether JeM is a respected organisations like the UN or UNESCO whose logo cannot be changed or have errors.
“JeM is a notorious organisation whose chief misleads people by claiming that either he is fighting for the religion or is doing social work. His lies have been busted,” the commentator says.
The Burk video tries to raise doubts when it claims that after the second bus in the convoy caught fire, why did not the bus ahead of it (first in the convoy) move to a safer distance. Seconds later, another frame shows that the the impact was in the first bus.
“Such big inconsistency in two frames within a matter of seconds... Nice work of image morphing and image distortion,” observes the counter video. Burk then raises a question as to why the impacted bus is seen on a road divider, to which the counter given in the form of a taunt is: “Perhaps, the creative experts in Burk channel are not aware of the impact of the blast of this magnitude.”
The video then claims that had the bus had been rammed by a vehicle laden with explosives, one side of the bus would not have shown any impact and the other side would have been impacted (in the attack, the entire bus was blown to bits). The counter video then says that “Burk Media has no clue what impact 350 kg of RDX can cause.”
Further, the Burk video tries to confuse the total number of buses in the CRPF convoy, the registration plates, and the different marking/labels on the buses. It raises questions about the bullet and shrapnel marks on the buses that were close to the impacted bus. “It appears as if these marks on the buses were made using cutters by the Indian agencies,” the Pakistan video says.
To this, the counter video wonders about the need for creating marks with cutters? “Do we have scarcity of bullets here? Why would we use cutters?”
“Pakistan is habituated to creating confusion and lies on religious lines. The bloody game Pakistan is playing will not last long,” sums up the counter video. “Videos like this, particularly the ones put out by the Burk channel, will form part of the proof to Pakistan and the international community, particularly the UN, in the days to come. The mischief is very evident and what more proof if required to prove Pakistan’s propaganda war and false claims,” said a senior official based in New Delhi.
Interestingly, the Facebook page of Burk channel claims that they “want to raise general public awareness regarding the past, present and future events based on facts and truth.” This channel has been created to inform the Muslim Ummah of the grave danger they face in the time we exist today, says the channel.
