Claim: Ten Indian soldiers were killed after militants fired on the green bus on 9 June in Jammu and Kashmir.
Fact: The photo of the green bus is not from the Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir.
Moreover, on 9 June, 10 Hindu pilgrims were killed on a bus in the Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir, and not Indian soldiers.
On 9 June, X user @NavCom24 claimed (archive): “#BREAKING: Massive News. Just in, a huge attack on a bus carrying Indian Army soldiers in Reasi, occupied Jammu & Kashmir. Ten (10) Indian soldiers have been confirmed dead by local police.”
A picture accompanying the post allegedly shows the attack on the bus that killed “10 Indian soldiers.”
Soch Fact Check investigated two parts of the claim:
(i) The image of the green bus is apparently from Jammu and Kashmir.
(ii) That the attack was on Indian soldiers.
Fact or Fiction?
Image of the Green Bus is from Jammu and Kashmir?
News reports from a Google Reverse Image search show the photo of the green bus originated in Afghanistan in 2014.
In 2014, the BBC reported that the Taliban carried out a suicide bombing on Afghan soldiers traveling on the bus, killing eight military officers. The video report of the incident shows the green bus behind the police line after the attack. The photo from the claim exactly matches a scene from the report, at the 00:07 mark of the video. When we pause the video at this point, the image appears to be a screengrab of this moment, confirming that it shows the bus attack which occurred in Afghanistan in 2014.
“I heard a huge explosion while I was walking on the road. After that dust and smoke was covering the whole area. When I reached the scene, several people had been killed,” a witness of the attack told Euronews. While he speaks, the same green bus as the one in the BBC’s video-report can be seen in the background, to his left, from 0:18 till 0:35 mark of the video.
The attack was on Indian soldiers
Soch Fact Check analyzed news reports to debunk the claim that the attack on the bus targeted Indian soldiers. A Google search did not yield any relevant news reports of an attack on Indian soldiers in Reasi, on 9 June.
However, we found news reports from the same day, of a militant attack on a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims. On 9 June, suspected militants fired at a passenger bus carrying Hindu pilgrims that fell into the ditch, killing 10, in the Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir, according to the BBC.
News9’s video report shows ambulances lining the street; people formed a human chain link, leading from the road into the gorge to retrieve the bodies of the dead.
Al Jazeera’s report also confirmed that the terror attack on the bus killed 10 Hindu pilgrims, and not “10 Indian soldiers” as claimed by the X user.
Reports by The Economic Times and The Wire also confirm the same. The CCTV footage, included in The Economic Times article, shows the bus from a few moments before the attack, and after it fell into the gorge. The color of the vehicle is white, and not green, with the name “ARUN” labelled on the sides of the bus in bold blue letters.
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that an X post claiming to carry the image of a bus, which was attacked in Jammu and Kashmir on 9 June, is false. Moreover, there is no credible evidence of an attack on a bus which killed 10 Indian soldiers on the same day.
Virality
The original claim garnered 22,000 views, was reposted 120 times, and liked 599 times.
It was shared on X here, here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: An image claiming to show a bus, attacked by militants in Jammu and Kashmir on 9 June 2024 is actually from Kabul, Afghanistan and dates back to 2014. Moreover, there are no credible news reports of a recent attack on a bus which killed 10 Indian soldiers in the Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir.
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Background image in cover photo: Daily Excelsior
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