Claim: A video shows the aftermath of an attack by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) in India.
Fact: The video actually shows a fire that broke out near a factory in the Gemulung village in Jepara, Indonesia.
On 7 May 2025, a user on Facebook posted a reel that allegedly showed an attack by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) in India. The reel’s caption read as follows in Urdu:
شہداء کی نماز جنازہ ادا کرنے کیبعد”
“پاکستان کا بھارتی فوجی کالونی پر حملہ ۔ ذرائع
This reads in English as:
“After performing the funeral prayers of the martyrs
Pakistan’s attack on an Indian military colony—Sources”
Between 22 April and 10 May 2025, Pakistan and India suffered a breakdown in diplomatic relations and an escalation in armed conflict, which marked “the heaviest fighting in decades” between the nuclear-armed neighbours. The trigger for this series of events was the Pahalgam attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, for which India blamed Pakistan. The escalation between the nuclear powers ended with a ceasefire on 10 May that Pakistan says was brokered by the United States government.
Fact or Fiction?
To see if this video actually showed an instance of a PAF attack in India, we conducted a reverse-image search of its keyframes. The video appeared to have surfaced as early as 5 May 2025 in a string of social media posts on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. These posts, captioned in Indonesian, claimed the video shows a fire at a factory area.
The Facebook post included an image from the video with the following caption:
“The cause of the fire at the Jepara HWI Factory Parking is suspected to have occurred at the stall and parking lot.
The incident at around 14.00 early fire was known from the stall owned by Ms. Sri in the north which came from a gas stove used for cooking when the incident owner of the stall was not at the location.”
The Instagram post’s caption read:
“Fire in the Pecangaan HWI factory area, several houses, stalls and motor parking got burned
chronology is not known yet”
The YouTube video’s caption read:
“Fire at the HWI Jepara factory”.
To see if the video actually showed the scene of a factory fire, we conducted a Google search with Indonesian keywords from the posts’ captions “Kebakaran di Parkiran Pabrik HWI Jepara” (fire in the HWI Jepara Factory Parking). This led us to reports by Indonesian news outlets Tribunnews.com and Antara of a fire that broke out on 5 May 2025 near a factory in “Gemulung Village, Pecangaan District, Jepara Regency”. Jepara is a regency in the northeast of Central Java, Indonesia.
We also came across reports by Indonesian outlets Kompas.com and Radar Kediri. Both news reports included images of the fire that matched the keyframes of the reel in the claim. The image from Kompas.com is compared with a frame from the reel below:
Videos on YouTube by Indonesian news outlets Murianews and Pos-kupang also corroborated this incident and featured images of the fire that matched those of the reel in the claim, as shown below:
A fact-check from Newschecker, a signatory of the International Fact Checking Network (IFCN), further confirmed our findings about the reel in the claim actually showing a fire near a factory in Indonesia.
Hence, the reel in the claim does not show an attack by the PAF in India. The reel actually shows a fire near a factory in the Gemulung Village in Jepara, Indonesia that broke out on 5 May 2025.
Virality
On Facebook, the claim was shared here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On X, the claim was shared here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
On Instagram, the claim was shared here, here, here, and here.
On TikTok, the claim was shared here.
On YouTube, scenes from the reel appeared in longer videos shared here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: The reel in the claim shows a fire near a factory in the Gemulung village in Jepara, Indonesia, which broke out on 5 May 2025. It does not show an attack by the PAF in India.
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Background image in cover photo: Dhaka Tribune
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