Thread by @suchitrav

Vasundhara Sirnate and I analyzed the news reports since the #pulwamaattacks

Our analysis of various Indian media news reports... thepolisproject.com/the-danger-of-…

// Key Findings // #PulwamaAttack 👇🏾

1. There are multiple versions of events reported with respect to the Pulwama attack. The newspapers, for instance, could not even agree on Adil Ahmad Dar’s age.

2. While reports regularly quote “government sources,” “NIA officials” and “IB officials,” these various institutions leaked conflicting information to reporters that often muddied the waters rather than bestow clarity.

Also, the number of “intelligence officers” willing to disclose “classified” information speaks of a larger problem of how information from the state is conveyed and reported.

3. Sources alone cannot constitute reporting. Yet most reports since the deadly Pulwama attack have relied heavily on such “sources,” government statements and conjecture without actually providing evidence of the facts. #pulwama

4. Many serious questions remain unanswered and rather than investigate these, the Indian media has largely ascribed to itself the role of an amplifier of government propaganda rather than report on the serious crisis that has now taken the two nuclear states to the brink of war.

// other key discrepancies// 👇🏾

Why was Adil Dar picked up 6 times in two years? This pattern, through our own research (@vsirnate and me )in the Valley, points to strategies employed by the military and local regiments to recruit local youth as informers to specific regiments.

Even if this analysis is wrong (and we admit this is only conjecture), Adil was definitely a person of interest for the security forces since the age of 17. Why did they not file any reports against him?

If it is confirmed that he was an OGW for the Lashkar, or a “Grade C terrorist” helping people cross the border and helping the local youth join the Lashkar, and if the military and/or the IB knew about his links to the Lashkar, why was he “picked up” and let go six times?

Early reports claimed an IED had been deployed in the Pulwama attacks. But soon the story settled on a vehicle either packed with RDX or containing an IED that used RDX.

News 18 reported that the RDX for the Pulwama attack was brought to Kashmir in small quantities over several months, according to its sources.

Yet, what remains a mystery is how such a large amount of RDX could have been smuggled into the Valley from Pakistan through the border, keeping the military, CRPF, BSF, police, and intelligence agencies entirely in the dark.

While various news agencies continue to report “progress,” what we know so far is very little.

It rained soon after the attack, making it hard to secure evidence that might have washed away although some pictures do reveal that parts of the wreckage were covered with plastic sheets.

Since the attack, Pakistan has denied any link to the attack. As of 26 February 26, NDTV reports that “officers of the state police who have been associated with the investigations into the current case say there is very little evidence.”

Further, the NIA has claimed that the IED/explosive device/bomb had to be assembled within 6-7 km of the blast site. On what basis was this conclusion reached? Again, the IED expert cited in this report is not pressed for that information.

Link back to the piece and read this section on The Four “Masterminds”
crafted by @vsirnate — How one sucide bomber became 4 masterminds and we still know nothing for sure. #PulwanaAttack

To date, we have no evidence that corroborates the position that the RDX was smuggled in from Pakistan by Ghazi. The NIA has not made that claim. How were such movements possible given the highly militarised and surveilled nature of the valley. #PulwamaAttack

These conjectures have been repeated by reporters, often quoting intelligence officials anonymously, without pushing them for more information, corroborating facts or evidence. Speculations are not proof.

Repeating speculations and conjectures, over and over again, has created an illusion of facts, without providing the fundamental clarity required to assess or understand what has actually transpired.

It is time we start a discussion on how the government in India is effectively using journalists to become amplifiers of government propaganda without seriously engaging with the ground realities in Kashmir. #PulwamaAttack

Reporting on the Kashmir dispute cannot be broken down into a series of discrete incidents; what is happening here is part of a long history and process in which the Indian state has played a massively oppressive role.

What is often not brought into focus in these narratives are the Kashmiris, who only appear to the Indian audience as terrorists, stone pelters, or human shields tied to jeeps. #kashmir

Apart from occasional lip-service about “human-rights violations,” reporters seldom engage with what it means to administer the world’s most militarized zone and its ongoing everyday violence.

Surveillance is integral to this militarization. Every inch of the Valley, its streets, schools, mosques, and homes are constantly watched. Kashmir is constantly under round-the-clock surveillance.

Given this constant surveillance and the availability of actionable intelligence, how was it possible for an attack of this nature to be successful? Information gathering in Kashmir is its own industry.

The Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) are not the only two agencies. Then there is the local police’s intelligence unit and military intelligence.

The CRPF and BSF both have cells dedicated to information gathering. Then every regiment has its own set of local informants, typically former Ikhwani or surrendered militants, that are paid by these regiments for information provided.

Given this mammoth architecture of surveillance, how was such an intelligence lapse possible?

These are extremely dangerous precedents because consensuses around “facts” are being manufactured with the complete complicity of the journalistic establishment.

Even two weeks after the attack no news site has actually rectified the errors in their reporting, leaving these misleading facts as a matter of public record.

We strongly question not only the sources of these stories but also the editorial establishments that have made such irresponsible reporting possible and have allowed misinformation about such important events to become a matter of public record. // end