Karachi:
Between the night of May 6 and 7, India believed that I had almost achieved it, even if only for a moment. After more than two weeks of drums of war hysteria through his media, New Delhi was prepared to deliver a dose of catharsis to his audience about Pahalgam.
With a direct title to Bollywood, India launched ‘Operation Sindoor’ and fired missiles in multiple cities of Pakistan and Azad Jammu & Kashmir. At least 31 civilians were martyred and many more injured.
Something about these consecutive confirmations seemed to take something in the psyche of the Government of Modi and its henchmen of the media. The last two weeks have already marked the highest tensions between the two nations in decades. But what was developed last night crossed the border towards the comically surreal.
It began as innocuously as anything can in an atmosphere full of information war. After an informative news session of the LT Gen of DG ISPR Ahmed Sharif, in which he declared that Pakistan had successfully demolished dozens of Israeli manufacturing drones launched by India in multiple cities, several social media accounts of India began to circulate a deep video of him ‘admitting’ the loss of two jets of the Pakist Air Force of Pakist Jets to the Indian Air Force.
But while the doubtful handles that sell bad information have long been a distinctive seal of cross -border conflicts in the digital age, at least one Indian television channel took a step further and framed the manipulated footage as an authentic statement of the chief military spokesman of Pakistan.
On the basis of that prelude, Indian Media launched another save, claiming that the Indian aerial defenses had knocked down a Pakistani F-16 on Indian airspace and captured their pilot. The Personalities of the Indian media of Strike in Azul promoted “exclusive” that never materialized, while marginal accounts with little credibility distributed a nebulous and subexposed image that they swore showed the ‘pilot’ in custody.
As both statements unraveled in the absence of evidence, reports arose that India had imposed an Internet blackout in Kashmir administered by India, along with a prohibition of social networks accounts considered as drilling their narrative. Platform X announced that India had ordered him to block more than 8,000 accounts, orders that said he was reluctantly complying, describing them as “censorship” imposed by the government. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defense of India issued an advice that instructed the media and social networks that refrain from transmitting live coverage of defense operations or the movement of security forces. The unconfirmed reports also suggested that Indian officials were aimed at avoiding interacting with the Western media.
With the camera of fact firmly sealed, the Indian news channels entered into excess of their Hindutva fantasies about Pakistan.
The presenters and the panelists now, in full nationalist ecstasy, declared that the Indian Army had assaulted through the border and captured to Lahore. Major Gaurav Arya, channeling the energy of a presenter of a game program instead of a defense analyst, begged the Indian Navy “to skip the cool.”
If the Marina lost the Gaurav memo, Zee News certainly did not. His anchor said breath that the Indian Navy had destroyed the port of Karachi with “more than ten explosions”, announcing “there was nothing left” in Pakistan. “Reports are coming: there is a great explosion in Peshawar,” a panelist intervened while painting a surreal image of dismantled Pakistan, a city by city, under a relentless Indian fire power. “His soldiers are abandoning one by one: his generals are fleeing from the country,” added another.
Aaj Tak, as if trying to overcome Zee News, raised the bets even more. Multiple explosions had reduced all Peshawar to dust, the anchor declared. “The news full of terror is coming from different cities of Pakistan,” he added, his voice increasing on a background of war sirens, as if he were narrating the trailer of an epic war film, not presenting a newsletter.
TV9 Bharatvarsh decided to go better. “Please add Quetta … Quetta to this!” He exclaimed an anchor, playing more as if he were broadcasting a frantic plea than to read the news. “In the area that is Quetta, Baloch has attacked!” He declared, before marking ‘strategic points’ where the Indian forces had allegedly caused ‘important destruction’ on a brilliant map behind him.
In Republic World, Arnab Goswami said that a massive explosion had been heard outside the “residence” of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif when the Indian forces directed their attention to Islamabad.
Zee News, should not be overcome, reported that Pakistan’s head of the army, the general also Munir, had been arrested in a coup d’etat, while Pakistan Tehreek-E-Insaf allegedly led mass protests against Prime Minister Shehbaz.
Even Barkha Dutt, once a respected figure in Indian journalism, joined the frenzy. “Breaking, our Navy has attacked the port of Karachi, as part of the massive reprisals in response to Pakistan missiles and drones aimed at multiple locations in India, including Jammu airport,” he published in X, linked to its transmission. He had also shared publications about the alleged ‘capture’ of a Pakistani pilot.
And so spent the night.
