A claim going viral on social media states that journalist-turned-terrorist Rayees Ahmad Bhat was the person who threw a petrol bomb at the CRPF camp in Sopore in Jammu and Kashmir on 29 March.
Bhat, former editor in chief of Valley News Service (VNS), was killed in an encounter early on 30 March.
Some of the claims are being shared with a video of the incident while others were shared with a collage of an identity card of Bhat along with a screenshot of the clip showing the bomb-throwing incident.
However, we found that person who threw the bomb was not Bhat. As per the IGP Kashmir, Vijay Kumar, a woman hurled a petrol bomb at a CRPF camp in Sopore who was later arrested from Baramulla area of north Kashmir. She was identified as Haseena Akhtar, an Over Ground Worker (OGW) of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
CLAIM
The caption with the viral video read, "बुर्का पहनकर CRPF पर पेट्रोल बम फेंकने वाला आतंकवादी मोहम्मद रईस अहमद भट मारा गया। आतंकवादी बनने से पहले पत्रकार था रईस।"
[Translation: Terrorist Mohammad Rais Ahmed Bhat, who threw petrol bomb on CRPF wearing a burqa, was killed. Raees was a journalist before becoming a terrorist.]
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
Panchjanya, a journal linked with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), shared the claim in a tweet, which was later shared by other social media users on Facebook and Twitter. Panchjanya later issued a clarification.
Right wing propaganda website OpIndia also wrote a news article on the same claim. Archives of more such posts on Facebook and Twitter can be found here and here.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We conducted keyword search for Rayees Ahmad Bhat and found news reports talking about the death of the former journalist.
A report in the Scroll said that the 24-year-old was killed with another LeT terrorist Hilal Ahmad Rah on 30 March in a gunfight with security forces in Srinagar.
Following the encounter, the official Twitter account of Kashmir Zone Police tweeted out a press identity card that belonged to Bhat. The same identity card was used in the collage shared in the viral posts.
We then looked for reports on a petrol bomb being hurled on a CRPF camp and found news reports on the same from 30 March.
According to reports, a burqa-clad person threw a petrol bomb at a CRPF camp in Sopore. We found the video of the incident shared by several media organisations. The same video was part of the viral posts.
IGP Kashmir Vijay Kumar, on 30 March, said that the woman who hurled the bomb was identified. On 31 March, Kumar informed the media that the accused in the case, a woman called Haseena Akhtar, was arrested from Baramulla area.
Kumar told news agency PTI that Akhtar had been working as an over ground worker of LeT and had been arrested under UAPA in 2021. She had been on bail since December 2021. Akhtar reportedly joined militancy in 2008 after coming in contact with pro-Pakistan separatist Asiya Andrabi.
Evidently, two unrelated incidents were linked to create a false narrative about Bhat being the burqa-clad person who hurled a bomb at a CRPF camp.
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