Following the latest Pahalgam incident, which took place in the heavily militarized and securitized Baisaran meadows in the Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, South Asia has witnessed perhaps the most dangerous India-Pakistan military escalation since South Asia’s overt nuclearisation in 1998.

On May 7, 2025, New Delhi conducted, what it termed as Operation Sindoor, targeting areas in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. This was followed by an elaborate infiltration of the IAI Harop drones across Pakistani cities on May 8. Next, on May 10 midnight, New Delhi conducted missile strikes on three of Pakistan’s Airbases, which resulted into Pakistan’s retaliation in full throttle.

A glaring feature of this crisis however was the blatant use of disinformation by New Delhi, whereby information spaces were flooded with a relentless stream of fake news, half-baked truths, and manipulated narratives, blurring the lines between fact and fiction. The insanely mammoth scale of India’s disinformation campaign also broadly brings into question the veracity of India’s claims and positions otherwise as well.

In this context, this piece tends to unpack how New Delhi employed an elaborate campaign of concocting false narratives and fake news during the crisis in an attempt to manipulate public perception, to appease domestic audiences and to create the ‘euphoria’ of “we are winning this war”.

The fiasco began with the Pahalgam incident itself. As soon as the unfortunate incident took place, New Delhi found home in making terse and baseless accusations against Pakistan, claiming it to be responsible for the attack. Islamabad condemned the attack, denied the allegations and offered to fully cooperate in impartial investigations.

However, amid the Indian accusations awaiting any thinnest substantiation or evidence, New Delhi resorted to launching a military operation against Pakistan. In the following days, the operation led to a dangerous military escalation (that could have been suicidal provided that both states are nuclear-armed); all on the pretext of an Indian accusation that has zero evidence.

It is to be noted that while New Delhi is yet to apprehend at the very least, at least a single perpetrator, or an accomplice or a facilitator of the incident, it is convinced that it can launch a full-blown attack against Pakistan on a completely unfounded pretext, and bring the entire region at the cusp of brinkmanship.

To begin with, India’s defence ministry, in its preliminary press statement claimed that the operation targeted alleged “terrorist infrastructure” inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir, and did not hit any military or civilian targets. However, factually; the targets engaged by New Delhi were civilian infrastructure – some of them being religious places, other residential areas, leading to estimated 31 civilian casualties which included women and children.

It is to be noted that New Delhi’s track record is riddled with such exaggerations. Similar claims were made during the 2016 and 2019 India-Pakistan crises when India announced its so-called “surgical strikes” inside Pakistan’s territory. The claims – of attacking and neutralizing terrorist infrastructures – were subsequently debunked by independent assessments and satellite images.

Soon after India’s attack, India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, accompanied by two military officers, held a monologue with the Indian press. During this briefing, the operation was framed as ‘limited’, targeting only specific launchpads – albeit alleged, with no intentions of further escalating; provided that Pakistan chose to restrain. It defies logic as well as sanity that an attack that not just violated the Line of Control but also breached Pakistan’s sovereignty by violating the international border, targeted civilian infrastructure, and inflicted civilian casualties was conveniently deemed and termed as ‘non-escalatory’ by New Delhi.

However, while Misri offered an apparently sanitised version of the operation, within hours, reports from international media platforms including U.S-based The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and a France-based intelligence official confirmed the losses of Indian military platforms at the hands of the Pakistan Air Force.

Most notably, the reported downing of French-origin Rafale fighter jet put New Delhi in a rather embarrassing spot. Perhaps, it was in response to these losses going public, that on May 8, New Delhi launched a series of Kamikaze drone incursions across major Pakistani cities – Pakistani forces claimed to bring down at least 75 drones. India’s government-linked sources referred to Operation Sindoor as “ongoing” and “still on”.

When it came to the question of ceasefire, New Delhi displayed its resistance toward accepting that the ceasefire was brokered by the U.S. This primarily resulted from New Delhi’s predisposition of rejecting any third-party intervention with regards to India-Pakistan relations, particularly following the Simla Agreement.

In line with this position, while announcing that India and Pakistan had reached a ceasefire deal, the Indian foreign secretary – while downplaying Washington’s role – claimed that Pakistan’s Director General of Military Operations reached out to his Indian counterpart to initiate talks on a ceasefire. Here, it is also pertinent to note communication between DGMOs follows after a political-level settlement between the heads of both governments has been reached through diplomatic means.

Furthermore, a senior news correspondent reported that it was rather New Delhi that had huddled to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to facilitate ceasefire talks with Pakistan after Pakistan had launched its retaliatory strikes against India on May 10.

On the other hand, when it came to reporting, India’s mainstream news channels defenestrated and threw the norms and ethics of reporting to the winds. India’s household news channels including the NDTV, Times Now, Aaj Tak, Zee News and Republic News broadcasted insanely outlandish claims, which were grossly false and completely unfounded.

During live broadcasts, media outlets went as far as claiming that the Indian military had stormed into Pakistan and captured major Pakistani cities. In another dramatic episode of dramatic allegations, some news channels reported that Pakistan’s military had surrendered, and some select cities had fallen to rebel groups and ethno-nationalists. Furthermore, Indian news channels displayed AI-generated visuals and images purportedly showing downed Pakistani platforms. While it is the tip of the iceberg, some of the major false news peddled by Indian media outlets included:

• Despite being grossly incorrect and inflated, Indian news channels continued reporting Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s claim that Operation Sindoor had led to the killing of 100 terrorists. News Story Source: India Today
• On the eve of May 9, Indian news channels claimed that Pakistan had launched attacks in the Pathankot, Jaisalmer and Srinagar located in in IIOJ&K. Pakistan was swift in denying the allegations. News Story Source: Al Jazeera
• On the eve of May 9, Indian News channels also claimed that the Indian Air Force had shot down one Pakistani F-16 and two JF-17 jets during the skirmishes, while Pakistan had not even launched any attack in the first place. News Story Source : The Economic Times
• Indian News channels reported that Pakistan launched drone and missile attacks on Indian cities, including Amritsar, which were intercepted by India’s S-400 missile system. This was also categorically denied by Islamabad. News Story Source: Times of India

While such news outlets functioned unabated, the news portal The Wire, generally known for its responsible reporting had been blocked by India’s Internet service providers on the orders from India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.