The 'story' was carried by most major Indian news outlets, including Asian News International (ANI), the Times of India, News18, Times Now, NDTV, and ThePrint.
The image gained considerable traction on social media platforms and was originally tweeted by Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch.
In order to verify the news, the image was cross-checked using the Google Maps street view services by fact-checkers who discovered that the picture was actually from a cemetery located in Hyderabad, India.
The cemetery is situated opposite to Masjid-e-Salar Mulk, a mosque in Darab Jung Colony, Madannapet in Hyderabad, India.
The graves were padlocked by families to prevent others from burying more bodies at the final resting place of their loved ones.
Pakistani netizens urged Indian media to focus on the increasing number of cases of violence against women in India, rather than resorting to false claims to defame and target Pakistan.
The proliferation of fake news is a real factor in modern conflicts between states. An increasing number of countries are using disinformation campaigns to influence and alter public opinion at home and abroad. While state-led misinformation campaigns on social media are a recent phenomenon, a report by the RAND Corporation, an American non-profit global policy think tank, suggests several countries have employed this tactic abroad to advance and promote a particular narrative – and in most cases against a foreign adversary.
Such misleading campaigns that propel unverified information on social media, the think tank says, have notched operational successes, but their overall impact is less certain. However, it cautions that the spread of misinformation will likely increase over the coming decade.
Experts define the use of misleading campaigns as a potent information-warfare tool. “It's a feature of totalitarianism, certainly; controlling and distorting information controls and distorts the understanding of those consuming it,” explained Dr Melissa Beattie, Assistant Professor of English and Communications at the American University of Armenia. When asked about the consequences of such campaigns, Dr Beattie said: “In the first instance, if the person is not aware of the misinformation and has not been taught media literacy or critical thinking skills, then they may base their actions and worldview on deliberately false information. This generally would then serve to aid whatever bad State or non-State actors' purpose.”
“In the second instance, where the person is aware of misinformation (or the potential for it), that person's response depends on their critical thinking/media literacy skills. If they are able to analyse the material they read and make determinations of credibility/veracity based upon facts, then that's a drain on their energy but they can remain reasonably safe from misinformation,” added Dr Beattie, who specializes in media and cultural studies.
According to senior experts in Pakistan, misinformation has become a permanent tool in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policy manual related to Pakistan. “While the government in India denies any link to the spread of misinformation about Pakistan, all Internet Protocol addresses can be traced back to New Delhi,” said Dr Imran, a senior digital media expert, who also maps online trends. He claimed more than 500 domains including baluchday.org, baluchistantoday.com, baluchday.com, JammuKashmir.eu, friendsofKashmir.eu, foreignaffairs.times.com and several others were traced to 208.73.210.140, an Indian IP address used to propel hate speech, fake news and in many cases propaganda.
“India has always tried to exploit faultlines in Pakistan – no surprises there,” said Dr Talat Wizarat, a senior foreign policy expert. The former chairperson of the Department of International Relations at the University of Karachi said the trend of spreading propaganda against Pakistan is not new. “However, it has accelerated on Mr Modi’s watch, and we will witness an uptick over the next few years,” she cautioned.
To distract the audience at home, Dr Wizarat said, Prime Minister Modi needs to spread information about Pakistan that is misleading. “It helps him at home and abroad – particularly at a time when India’s domestic troubles are mounting.”
While New Delhi has recently blocked several websites and online channels, blaming Pakistan for using them to spread anti-India information, the Indian government’s Ministry of Electronics and Information did not respond to questions related to the claims made by the Modi administration. Pakistan, Dr Wizarat said, needs to up its diplomatic game in capitals around the world. “We need our diplomatic missions around the world to engage with think tanks and experts to expose New Delhi’s campaigns to discredit Islamabad.”
Dhruv Rathee, an activist and social media influencer, who regularly criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies, claims that the Indian government hires the services of PR firms, trolls and influencers on platforms like Facebook and Twitter to disseminate its agenda. In one of his videos Rathee claimed the government in New Delhi spends millions to spread its ‘hate agenda’.
Buffeted by controversies, including not preventing the use of fake accounts to influence public opinion in the 2016 US Presidential election, and for failing to control hate speech on its platform that has fueled violence in several countries including Myanmar, Facebook or Meta, as it is now known, did not respond to questions related to the subject. The social media platform was asked to share the number of requests by the Indian government to remove accounts that spread hate speech or misleading information via email.
A case study titled ‘The Impacts of Misinformation in South Asia’ by researchers at the Center for Media Engagement, University of Texas at Austin, also flags the new element of the contemporary Indo-Pakistani conflict: fake news. According to Dr Ashok Swain of Uppsala University, Indian media organizations have also played a role in spreading fake news. “They have failed to play their roles responsibly,” said the Sweden-based professor of peace and conflict. He said the media on both sides needs to play a responsible role.
Dr Swain, who is a vocal critic of the Indian Prime Minister and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, has frequently been targeted by followers of Mr Modi on social media, for expressing his views. Shortly after the 2019 Pulwama attack, for which Pakistan was blamed by the Indian government, Dr Swain shared a post on Twitter: “Modi is doing with Pulwama in 2019 what he had done with Godhra in 2002 - Instigating more violence for his own political gains.”
According to another senior academic based in New Delhi, much of the misinformation circulated on social media by the Indian government is aimed at distracting the public. “Anti-Pakistan narrative gains mileage here – particularly within circles that admire Mr Modi for his tough stance against Islamabad,” the expert said on the condition of anonymity via Signal from New Delhi .
“India produced the largest amount of social media misinformation on coronavirus,” the study said. Researchers analysed 9,657 pieces of misinformation that originated in 138 countries before declaring New Delhi as the top source for misinformation on the subject. In his study, Sayeed Al-Zaman, analysed misinformation originating between January 2020 and March 2021. India, according to the University of Alberta researcher, is the world’s top hot spot for coronavirus-related misinformation, accounting for roughly one in six pieces of output generated worldwide.
“To my knowledge, I did not see much effort from the Indian government or other governments from other countries to curb Covid-19 misinformation, except a few sporadic efforts, such as requesting social media platforms to take steps to resolve the problems. In this age of mass deception, these temporary efforts would not be helpful,” Sayeed said by email from Alberta where he is based.
The misinformation being disseminated in India has multiple objectives. Hate and disinformation campaigns , according to Professor Shakuntala Banaji’s blog piece, have increased during the ongoing pandemic – particularly against members of the Muslim community.
“Some commentators naively assumed that a life-threatening pandemic would bring citizens together, and be enough to suspend if not completely stop the now endemic barrage of disinformation targeted at Indian Muslims. However, Covid-19 has simply added a new dimension to the hate speech and disinformation circulated about Muslim communities in India,” says the piece Professor Banaji co-authored with Dr Ram Bhat, a fellow in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Lashing out at Indian media channels for trying to normalize hate speech, Uppsala University’s Dr Ashok Swain said: “Hate speech is a criminal act. Indian TV channels debate on it to normalise hate speech against minorities.”
Journalists known to support the ruling BJP and the Hindutva cause in India, another expert said, were propelling the agenda on television and social media. “That is an alarming trend. Journalists and media in India are acting as the mouthpiece of the ruling party where they should be holding them accountable for their actions,” he said via Signal.
