At least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in an armed clash with China in Galwan Valley of Ladakh earlier this week.
While the number of Chinese casualties is still unclear, anchors of an Indian news channel have claimed that 30 were killed, reading out their names from a fake Whatsapp forward message.
While the message was falsely credited to Chinese daily tabloid newspaper Global Times, there’s no evidence to support its validity.
However, later in its bulletin, the news channel probably noticed the faux pas and mentioned that the information could be a “fake forward”.
Following this, several Indian news outlets fact-checked this and found that no such information had been shared by Global Times. A search on the organisation’s website also led to no results while the news organisation has not shared any such information on its Twitter account as well.
Meanwhile, Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of Global Times, tweeted that the Chinese government had not released the official number of casualties.
“My understanding is the Chinese side doesn’t want people of the two countries to compare the casualties number so [as] to avoid stoking public mood. This is goodwill from Beijing,” Xijin wrote.
