Old, Unrelated Videos Viral As Pakistani Strikes On Military Base In Amritsar

Claim

Pakistan bombs a military base in Amritsar, Punjab.

The archived version of the post can be seen here, which has clocked 439.6K views so far.

Fact

Newschecker ran a reverse image search of keyframes, which led us to the same video on X, dated March 2, 2024, stating that Texas is heating up as fires continue to burn “out of control”. A similar X post from March 1, 2024, can be seen here, saying that it is of the Texas fires. We learnt that the largest wildfire in Texas’s state history broke out on February 26, 2024 and quickly spread within days, fuelled by dry, windy conditions.

We also came across this May 8, 2025 PIB Fact Check post on X, debunking the viral video, stating that it actually shows a wildfire from 2024, which further confirms that the viral claim is false.

Claim 2

Video claiming to show Amritsar under attack.

 The archived version of the post can be seen here, which has clocked 38.3K views so far.

Fact

Newschecker ran a reverse image search of keyframes, which led us to the same video shared on Instagram on March 27, 2025, and on March 26, 2025, well before the ongoing India-Pakistan standoff triggered by the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22, 2025.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Asraf Khan (@ashraf_k_h_a_n)

We noticed that one of the reels stated that it was from Mumbai, following which we ran a relevant keyword search, which led us to multiple reports featuring similar videos and photos from March 25, 2025, seen here, here and here, saying that a massive fire broke out in a truck carrying gas cylinders in Dharavi area of Mumbai on Monday night

“Multiple explosions lit up the sky after fire broke out in a parked truck carrying a large number of #LPG gas cylinders near the #Dharavi bus depot on the Sion-Dharavi Link Road adjoining the Nature Park, at around 9.50pm,” read Times of India’s post on the incident, which further confirms that the viral video is not from Amritsar.

Also Read: UGC Cancels Exams Amid India-Pak Standoff? No, Viral ‘Notice’ Is Fake

UPDATE ON 08/05/2025: Although, we could not yet independently verify the incident and location of the videos, we can confirm they are not related to the ongoing India-Pakistan situation.

UPDATE ON 09/05/2025: Newschecker noticed that in one of the posts that said the first video was showing a wildfire in Texas, a user replied in the comments that it was actually from Chile, while sharing a Spanish X post from February 4, 2024.

According to the post, written in Spanish, the video was said to be from the Valparaiso region of ​​Chile. An Instagram post from the “independent media outlet”, dated February 4, 2024, shared the video too. We came across a CNN report, dated February 5, 2024, on the wildfires that had raged across Chile, noting that the location was Valparaiso, Chile.

A further search led us to this April 14, 2024 X post by Venezuela-based fact-checking organisation, Cazadores, that monitors disinformation in several Latin American countries. The Spanish post debunks the video that had then gone viral with the claim that it showed Iran’s retaliatory attack on Israel, clarifying that it was actually from a fire in Achupallas (Viña del Mar), Chile, and has been circulating on social media since February 2024. The clarification was also posted by Shayan Sardarizadeh, a senior journalist at BBC Verify, on April 14, 2024, reiterating that the video was from Chile.

Source
X post, March 1, 2024
Instagram post, March 26, 2025
PIB Fact Check post, X, May 8, 2025
Aurangabad Times post, Instagram, March 25, 2025
X post, Cazadores, April 14, 2024,
(with inputs from Runjay Kumar, Newschecker Hindi)