Fact Check: Pahalgam terror attack - Video of child crying over father's body is old and unrelated
A video of a child is being shared on social media with claims that it shows him crying after his father was shot dead by terrorists in Pahalgam.
By K Sherly Sharon
Claim:The video shows a Hindu boy whose father was shot in front of him during the Pahalgam terrorist attack in 2025.
Fact:The claim is false. The video shows a Muslim boy being rescued by CRPF personnel after his grandfather was killed in the 2020 Sopore terror attack.
Hyderabad: At least 26 people were killed in a deadly terror attack in the Baisaran Valley, Pahalgam - over 100 km south of Srinagar - on April 22, 2025.
In this context, a heart-wrenching video is being circulated on social media claiming to show a Hindu boy crying beside his fatherās body, killed in the Pahalgam terror attack. The video includes an image of a child sitting next to a dead body, followed by visuals of him crying.
The video has been shared with the caption, ā#Muslims Tell me what is the fault of this child? His father was shot in front of him. They checked the father's pants in front of an innocent child and shot him in the streets because he was #Hinduā¦#Pahalgam #PahalgamTerroristAttackā (Translated from Hindi) (Archive)
Post making similar claims can be found here. (Archive)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The video is from July 1, 2020, and shows a three-year-old Muslim boy whose grandfather was killed during a terror attack in Sopore, Jammu and Kashmir.
Using reverse image search of the viral videos keyframes, we found a YouTube video uploaded by Hindustan Times on 1 July, 2020 with the title, āSopore terror attack: CRPF jawan and a civilian killed; 3-year old boy rescued.ā
The viral video of the child crying can be seen in this video. However the video seems to be flipped horizontally.
We found a video uploaded on YouTube by India Today on the same day with the title, "Sopore Terror Attack: Security Forces Rescue 3-Year-Old From Bullets In Jammu And Kashmir.ā The video shares the image of the child sitting beside the dead body of a relative.
According to the description of the video the child, a three year old, was rescued by Security Forces while he was sitting beside his grandfather who was shot down by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Sopore. It is heard in the video that the boy was spotted by CRPF personnel, who took him and handed him over to his mother.
The official X (Twitter) handle of Kashmir Zone Police also shared an image of a CRPF officer carrying the child, captioned, āJKP #rescued a three years old boy from getting hit by bullets during #terrorist #attack in #Sopore. @JmuKmrPoliceā
A report on the incident by India Today was published on 3 July 2020 with the headline, āSopore attack: A tragic whodunitā
āOn July 1, a three-year-old in Sopore, Kashmir, watched his grandfather die. Killed, allegedly, in a crossfire between militants and the Central Reserve Police Forces (CRPF),ā stated the report.
The report adds that the grandfather of the boy is a 65-year-old Bashir Ahmad Khan. A nephew of Khan was also named in the report as Ajaz Ahmad. From the report, it is evident that the boy belonged to a Muslim family, and the viral claim misrepresents both the victim and the context.
The viral video shows a three-year-old child whose grandfather was shot down during the Sopore terror attack on 1 July 2020. It is unrelated to the Pahalgam terrorist attack that took place on 22 April, 2025.
Therefore NewsMeter concludes that the viral claim is false.
