Pro-India parade filmed in Gujarat state, not Pakistan
"RSS marches in Balochistan. You must have heard the name RSS Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh," reads a Hindi-language X post on May 20, 2025, referring to the group that is the ideological fountainhead of India's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (archived link).
"These days it has become active in Balochistan, see," the post adds. Its featured footage shows a group of people holding Indian flags and banners, marching through a street.
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Screenshot of the false post taken May 27, 2025
Similar posts surfaced on Facebook after the BJP launched a national flag campaign called "Tiranga Yatra" to highlight New Delhi's recent military action against Islamabad (archived link).
India carried out airstrikes that it said targeted "terror camps" inside Pakistan in early May in response to an attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir which New Delhi blames on its neighbour. Islamabad denies the charge (archived link).
The conflict that ensued killed 70 people on both sides and pushed the nuclear-armed neighbours to brink of a war before an unexpected truce halted the fighting (archived link).
However, Balochistan province, where attacks by separatist groups have soared in the past few years (archived link).
The video in the posts has been misrepresented.
A using keyframes led to the same video uploaded on YouTube on May 17, 2025. Its description says the visuals show a "Tiranga Yatra" march in Gujarat's Surat city (archived link).
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Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and the clip from YouTube
According to a report from The Indian Express newspaper, the parade happened on May 14 and saw attendees playing patriotic songs and holding up placards hailing Indian soldiers (archived link).
Banners visible in the clip are written in the Gujarati language and a picture of , could be seen at the 24-second mark.
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Screenshot of the clip with the Gujarati signs highlighted by AFP
Using shop signs as clues, AFP was able to confirm the location of the footage by comparing its visuals with Google Maps street imagery of a road in Surat (archived link).
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Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and Google Maps street imagery of the area
AFP has debunked other misinformation stemming from the India-Pakistan conflict here.
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