Pahalgam Video
A video that falsely claimed to depict the final moments of Indian Navy officer Lieutenant Vinay Narwal, who was killed in a recent attack in Pahalgam, has gone viral across various social media platforms, sparking widespread outrage.
The video quickly spread on sites such as X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram, where it was claimed to show Lt. Narwal dancing with his wife in his last moments before the tragic incident.
According to reports from Indian media, Lieutenant Narwal had recently married on April 16 and was on his honeymoon with his wife in Pahalgam, located in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), when the attack occurred, resulting in his tragic death.
The viral video showed a man, with his arms spread in a manner similar to Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s signature dance moves, dancing with a woman. The misleading captions and wide sharing of this clip led to many assuming it was a recording of Lt. Narwal’s final moments.
However, the viral claims were swiftly debunked when Indian journalist Sachin Gupta shared a follow-up video on X in which the couple in question clarified that the footage was not of Lt. Narwal and his wife, but of them.
In the video, the woman explains that she and her husband are alive and that the video being circulated has been wrongly associated with Lt. Narwal’s death. She expressed distress at how their personal video had been misused by media outlets and social media users, falsely attributing it to the late Navy officer.
Further investigation on Instagram confirmed the couple’s identity, with their accounts—Yashika Shish Sahrawat and Yashika Sharma Sahrawat—showing the original video. In their statement, the woman expressed gratitude for being alive, while clarifying that the video was old and had no connection to the recent tragic incident involving Lt. Narwal.
The caption on their Instagram post read: “We are alive. We would like to draw your attention to a recent video being misused by several Indian pages and media channels. It’s falsely being claimed as Lt. Vinay’s last video.”
In addition to clarifying the matter, the couple expressed their condolences to Lt. Narwal’s family and called for people to report the accounts misusing their video.
They also criticized the media for using unverified videos to gain views, which they said undermines public trust in the news. “It’s shocking to see that media outlets are using unverified videos just for views. This makes it even harder for people to trust the news,” the couple stated.
This incident serves as a reminder of the importance of verifying information before sharing it, particularly in sensitive cases where misinformation can cause significant distress to the families involved and the wider public.
