'Verify your facts': India schools Chinese state media over Operation Sindoor disinformation

The Indian embassy in Beijing rebuked Global Times for using outdated photos of crashed aircraft in reports about Operation Sindoor — a mission under which India carried out 24 precision missile strikes at nine locations flagged as terrorist strongholds.

"Dear Global Times, we would recommend you verify your facts and cross-examine your sources before pushing out this kind of disinformation," the embassy said in a post on X.

The mission, India's response to the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, targeted sites in Muzaffarabad, Kotli, Bahawalpur, Rawalakot, Chakswari, Bhimber, Neelum Valley, Jhelum, and Chakwal.

"Several pro-Pakistan handles are spreading baseless claims in the context of Operation Sindoor, attempting to mislead the public. When media outlets share such information without verifying sources, it reflects a serious lapse in responsibility and journalistic ethics," the Indian embassy added.

India's official fact-checking unit, PIB Fact Check, flagged the images used by Global Times as unrelated to the ongoing strikes. One was from a MiG-29 crash in Rajasthan in September 2024, while the other showed a MiG-21 crash in Punjab in 2021.

Drawing Global Times’ attention to the trigger for the strikes, India reiterated the brutality of the Pahalgam terror attack.

"On April 22, 2025, Pakistani and Pakistan-trained terrorists belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out a savage terror attack on Indian tourists at Pahalgam in Jammu & Kashmir in India. They targeted a particular community by asking people to identify themselves by their religion and murdered 26 people, including one national of Nepal, causing the largest number of civilian casualties in a terrorist attack in India since the November 26, 2008 attacks in Mumbai," the embassy stated.

It said the killings were carried out with extreme cruelty, mostly by close-range headshots, and in front of the victims’ families — a deliberate attempt to inflict psychological trauma and send a message.

Responsibility for the attack was claimed by The Resistance Front (TRF), which India said is a front organisation for the UN-proscribed group Lashkar-e-Taiba. India noted it had raised the issue with the UN’s 1267 Sanctions Committee in May and November 2024, identifying TRF as a cover for Pakistan-based terrorist organisations.

India further recalled informing the UN in December 2023 about Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad using smaller proxies like TRF, and cited Pakistan’s attempts to delete references to TRF from the April 25 UN Security Council press statement as significant.

"... Despite a fortnight having passed since the attacks, there has been no demonstrable step from Pakistan to take action against the terrorist infrastructure on its territory or on territory under its control. Instead, all it has indulged in are denials and allegations. Our intelligence monitoring of Pakistan-based terrorist modules indicated that further attacks against India were impending," the embassy noted.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh today commended the armed forces for the successful execution of the missile strikes. He said India had exercised its right to respond in the wake of the Pahalgam massacre.