Claim: Footage shows severe destruction across the Line of Control (LoC) after Pakistan attacked India in May 2025.
Fact: The video has no connection whatsoever to the military conflict that arose between India and Pakistan during May 2025. It was shared as early as November 2024.
On 7 May 2025, X account @azaad_urdu posted (archive) a video depicting fire and destruction and captioned it as follows:
“Azaad Digital Frontline Coverage 🚨🚨 بریکنگ نیوز🚨🚨 پاکستان نے بھارت پر دھاوا بول دیا، لائن آف کنٹرول پر بڑی تباہی
[Azaad Digital Frontline Coverage 🚨🚨 Breaking News 🚨🚨 Pakistan attacks India, causes major destruction on the Line of Control]”
The phrase “FIRST & EXCLUSIVE ON AZAAD DIGITAL” moves across the screen from right to left and “AZAAD DIGITAL FRONTLINE COVERAGE” is featured on the bottom.
The heavily-militarised Line of Control (LoC) is a de facto border that divides Kashmir into two regions administered by Pakistan and India.
It was established in 1972 as part of the Simla Agreement — signed by then-Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi — following the 1971 war between the two countries.
Pakistan-India conflict
In one of the most intense military escalations in decades, Pakistan and India exchanged drones, fire, shelling, and missiles for four days in May 2025, resulting in casualties on both sides. The conflict raised fears of a nuclear war between the two neighbouring countries that have fought three wars over the disputed Kashmir region.
India launched Operation Sindoor on 7 May 2025, targeting at least six locations inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. These attacks killed at least 31 people — including three children — and wounded 57 others, according to Pakistani authorities.
Information Minister Attaullah Tarar confirmed that the Pakistan Army “intercepted and destroyed 77 Israeli-made Harop drones” from India, a number also cited by state media outlet, the Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV). As of now, Soch Fact Check has not been able to independently verify the exact number of Indian drones that entered Pakistan or how many were shot down.
However, debris from multiple drones was found in a number of locations; Soch Fact Check visited and investigated the attacks at two crash sites each in Karachi, Rawalpindi, and Lahore. Read our on-ground reporting here.
In response, the Pakistan Army announced a counterattack — named “Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos”, which is an Arabic phrase that translates to “steel wall” — against India in the wee hours of 10 May 2025.
The military’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said Pakistan hit “26x military targets as well as facilities that were used to target Pakistani citizens and those enterprises that were responsible for fomenting terrorism in Pakistan”. The locations included those in “Suratgarh, Sirsa, Bhuj, Naliya, Adampur, Bhatinda, Barnala, Halwara, Awantipura, Srinagar, Jammu, Udhampur, Mamun, Ambala, and Pathankot”, it said. “[The] BrahMos storage facilities at Beas and Nagrota were also destroyed.”
India’s Defence Ministry alleged that Pakistan “launched 300-400 drones across 36 Indian locations”.
In a 13 May statement, the Pakistan Army announced a total death toll of 51, including “40 civilians and 11 military service members”, and that close to 200 people, including 121 civilians, were wounded.
On the other hand, India announced on 11 May that 21 civilians and five soldiers had died.
On 10 May, both nations announced a ceasefire agreement, which Pakistan says was brokered by US President Trump. New Delhi maintains that the ceasefire was worked out “directly” by both sides.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse-searched keyframes from the viral video and found at least two instances when it was posted online in April 2025. On 27 April, X account @DI313_ posted (archive) a two-second shorter version of the clip alongside the caption, “نَصْرٌ مِّن اللَّهِ وَفَتْحٌ قَرِيبٌ 🇵🇰⚔️,” which is actually the 13th verse of the Quran’s Surah As-Saf that translates to “Help from Allah and an imminent victory.”
Similarly, on 28 April 2025, YouTube channel Земля в Илюминаторе posted a three-second shorter version of the same video, with the Russian-language title “Обстановка на границе Индии и Пакистана [The situation on the border between India and Pakistan]” and the caption “Пишут, что пакистанские военные уничтожили пару индийских блокпостов [They write that Pakistani military destroyed a couple of Indian checkpoints]”.
Since the video in the claim by @azaad_urdu has logos and text superimposed on it, we performed another reverse image search using clearer keyframes from the two aforementioned posts and found matches in one Facebook and another X post from 23 November 2024 — both longer versions.
The Facebook post, viewable here, is captioned, “تازه ويډيو 💔😭 [Latest video 💔😭],” whereas the X post, available here, is accompanied by the following caption:
“Communal riots, Armed Shiite Extremist tribesman set fire to the market in Sunni-majority town of Bagan in Kurram District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in response to the killing of 110 civilians of #Shiite Turi and Bangash tribes by Sunni Extremist tribesmen.”
In both the posts above, matching visuals can be found at the 1:35 mark.
The incident can be corroborated by X posts shared at the time by Iftikhar Firdous — a journalist and founding editor of The Khorasan Diary — as well as news reports about the mass targeted killing of Shiite Muslims in Pakistan’s Kurram region on 21 November 2024. The killings led to families fleeing the area and, just days later, the violence surged, pushing the death toll higher.
“More than 30 people [were] killed and dozens more wounded after Shiite Muslims on Friday attacked a Sunni-dominated market and set it on fire in the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in northwestern Pakistan,” according to 23 November 2024 report by France 24.
The report quoted a senior police officer stationed in Kurram as saying, “Around 7 pm, a group of enraged Shiite individuals attacked the Sunni-dominated Bagan Bazaar. After firing, they set the entire market ablaze and entered nearby homes, pouring petrol and setting them on fire. Initial reports suggest over 300 shops and more than 100 houses have been burned.”
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that the video in question predates and is unrelated to the Pakistan-India conflict in May 2025.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the claim shared here, here, here, here, and here on X.
It was also posted on Facebook here.
Conclusion: The video has no connection whatsoever to the military conflict that arose between India and Pakistan during May 2025. It was shared as early as November 2024.
Background image in cover photo: Talha Hadi
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