Fact Check: False Viral Claims of Indian Navy and CRPF Casualties in Jhelum and Bastar

Police in Pakistan say that four members of the Indian Navy’s special Marine Commando Force (MARCOS) died when their boat capsized while they were training in the Jhelum River in Kashmir. There is also a picture of armed people on a boat in these posts.

Someone on X shared the post that went viral and wrote, “BREAKING: Around 8:00 a.m. today, four MARCOS commandos of the Indian Navy were killed when their boat capsized in the Jhelum river during a training exercise in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir.”

We also saw a similar post saying that MARCOS soldiers had been killed, along with another claim that 24 CRPF members had been killed during an operation against Naxalite militants.

India Today checked the facts and found that both claims were not true.

JHEELUM CLAIM

The most recent time a boat capsized in the Jhelum was on April 16. There were 15 people on the boat, seven children and eight adults. Around 7:30 am, the terrible events took place in the Gandbal Nowgam area of Srinagar.

A Kashmir-based news source called Greater Kashmir said that at least six people on board, including four children, died in the terrible accident.

You can read similar stories about what happened and how many people died or are still missing here and here.

In none of these stories did it say that an Indian Navy boat with MARCOS staff on board capsized in Jhelum.

The water level in the Jhelum has been rising because it has been raining nonstop for a few days now. The boat that flipped over was taking mostly kids from Gandbal to Batwara in Srinagar.

The NDRF, the SDRF, and the Indian Navy’s MARCOS unit were all involved in search and rescue efforts to find people who were reported missing.

So, it’s clear that the widely spread claim that Indian Navy personnel died during a training drill in Jhelum is not true.

BASTAR CLAIM

The CRPF killed 29 Naxals in a fight in Bastar on the same day as the accident in Jhelum. One Border Security Force inspector and two District Reserve Guard members were hurt during the raid against the Naxalite group.

On the other hand, there were no rumors that 24 CRPF members had died. A loss of so many important employees would have definitely gotten a lot of attention in the news.

The cops say that Shankar Rao, a top Maoist leader with a Rs 25 lakh reward on his head, and Lalita were among those who died in the fight. The Chhattisgarh Police thought that the number of deaths might go up as the search operation went on in the heavily wooded area.

So, it’s clear that the claim that 24 CRPF soldiers were killed in an action against Naxalite militants is also false.

WHAT IS THE PHOTO ABOUT?

We found that the picture that went popular was first shown in May 2023. There was a security blanket over Srinagar before the G20 Working Group meeting, with Marine troops and National Security Guards (NSG) being sent to the area as part of the ground-to-air security cover.