Posts from multiple Indian users on social media platform X since Thursday shared a screenshot of an alleged Dawn.com news report that the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group had stolen a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) F-16 fighter jet. However, Dawn has not published any such report.

Relations between Pakistan and India have turned exceedingly sour since an attack took place in Pahalgam, a tourist hotspot in India-occupied Kashmir that draws thousands of visitors every summer, on April 22. Gunmen opened fire on visitors, killing at least 26 people — all men from across India except one from Nepal — and injuring 17 others. Following the attack, India, without providing evidence, implied that attackers had links to Pakistan, an allegation that Islamabad has vehemently refuted.

The incident led to a severe downgrading of ties between the two countries. Since then, the Indian mainstream and social media outlets have been spreading propaganda against Pakistan.

On Thursday, an alleged screenshot of Dawn.com was shared by an Indian account on X, claiming that the news outlet had reported the TTP had stolen a PAF F-16 fighter jet.

The caption of the post said: “Reports claim TTP has stolen a Pakistan Air Force fighter jet. If true, this marks a shocking breach in military security.” It further added, “Even fighter jets are not safe in Pakistan.”

The user did not share the link to the alleged news story or its text beyond the headline.

The post gained 263,000 views.

The same alleged screenshot and claim were circulated by several other Indian accounts on X as can be seen here, here, here, here, here, here,here, here, here and here, collectively receiving over 26,000 views.

A fact-check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its virality and keen public interest in the events unfolding between India and Pakistan in the wake of the recent Pahalgam attack.

Analysing the alleged Dawn.com report screenshot using the AI-based forensic tool FotoForensics revealed significant blurriness and distortion throughout the image, especially around the text, an indicator of potential digital manipulation.

In contrast, when a screenshot of a report from Dawn.com’s official website was analysed using the same tool, no overt blurriness of the text was indicated.

A side-by-side visual comparison further highlighted key discrepancies. In the alleged screenshot, each word in the headline is in uppercase — unlike Dawn.com’s actual headline style, which only capitalises selected words.

The spacing between the headline and byline is also noticeably larger than the consistent format seen on Dawn.com’s website.

Additionally, a keyword search to locate the alleged Dawn.com article yielded no such report on the news outlet’s website or any other leading mainstream media outlet.

Instead, according to a June 10, 2020, Dawn.com report titled, “Fake news screenshot about ‘missing F-16’ posing as Dawn.com surfaces on social media”, a similar situation had occurred before.

As per the report, a screenshot of a fake news story doctored to look like an article on Dawn.com had surfaced on social media. The fake screenshot, shared on Twitter (now X), had attempted to mislead the public by suggesting that a PAF F-16 fighter jet had gone ‘missing’ during a ‘panic situation’ in Karachi.

The fake screenshot — widely shared by Indian Twitterati — had surfaced on the same day that Indian media reported “panic” in Karachi following what they called rumours of Indian Air Force fighters crossing the Line of Control.

The image was cropped to show only the fake story’s headline and doctored to resemble news articles on Dawn.com. However, certain grammatical and stylistic deviations had pointed to the “glaring inauthenticity of the screenshot”.

The iVerify Pakistan team also contacted the editor at Dawn.com to verify whether any such report had ever been published. Dawn.com news editor Bilal Farooqi confirmed that “no such story was reported on by the digital desk on May 1 or any other date.”

Therefore, the fact-check determined that the claim regarding a viral screenshot of an alleged Dawn.com report about the TTP stealing a PAF F-16 fighter jet is false. Dawn.com never reported on any such story, nor was it covered by any other mainstream outlet, and the viral image of the alleged news story is doctored.

This fact check was originally published by iVerify Pakistan — a project of CEJ-IBA and UNDP.