New Delhi: The Indian Army's fact-check account has named six social media handles for what it called coordinated inauthentic behaviour, after they circulated claims that Chinese forces had defeated Indian troops and advanced nearly 50 km into Arunachal Pradesh.
The six, identified in a post on Saturday, are @SongWeilonzob1, @letmehandleyou1, @_Finding_sarah, @DarkReal09, @War_Updates5 and @sumit_sarkr. The Army said they circulated the same content between 1506 hrs on November 6 and 0146 hrs on November 7.
"Several suspected Pak-sponsored social media accounts are circulating misleading claims that Chinese forces have severely defeated Indian troops, advanced nearly 50 km into Arunachal Pradesh and established PLA control over Indian territory," the post said. It said the claims were "being amplified in a coordinated manner to promote a misleading anti-Indian Army narrative."
The post tagged the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the Defence Ministry spokesperson, the Army's Additional Directorate General of Public Information, Eastern Command and PIB Fact Check, and set out what it called the pattern behind the campaign: "Fabricated Military Defeat + Exaggerated Territorial Incursion + Unsubstantiated PLA Control Claims = Misleading Anti-Indian Army Narrative."
The claims surfaced against a backdrop of reported face-offs along the Line of Actual Control in Arunachal Pradesh. The Indo-Tibetan Border Police chief, Shatrujeet Kapur, said on October 22 that Indian and Chinese troops had faced off at several points in the state since at least July, with reports that Chinese troops were denying Indian patrols access to some points in the Taksing area.
In August, the state Congress unit alleged a 40-50 km Chinese advance in Upper Subansiri district. Chief Minister Pema Khandu said he did not believe an incursion was taking place, and the Army had earlier rejected claims of an expanded PLA presence near Taksing as without basis.
The fact-check account has issued a series of clarifications since October 24, each tracing a claim to older or unrelated footage: a 2023 press briefing by then Major General Girish Kalia digitally altered with synthetic voice and lip-sync; a counter-terrorism mock drill in Karnataka passed off as Chinese soldiers frisking Indian troops; a Kazakh special forces exercise relabelled as a clash in the Taksing region; Chinese commercial trucks at the Nathu La trade point in Sikkim presented as an intrusion; and remarks by retired Lieutenant General Manoj Kumar Katiyar edited to claim Arunachal Pradesh was India's next major flashpoint.
The Army asked users to verify border-related claims through official sources before sharing them.
(With inputs from media reports)