The video of a snake wrapping around soldier’s rifle is from Indonesia
Claim
Indian Army Sniper Armed With Sako TRG 42 .338 Lapua Magnum Sniper Rifle Along A King Cobra Somewhere Near LAC At Arunachal Pradesh
Rating
Explanation
A 30-second video clip of a sniper in camouflage whose rifle is wrapped around by a snake is shared on social media claiming that it is an Indian army sniper. This post was shared by verified Twitter accounts like Dr.Rohit Upadhyay (BJP Leader), Sumit Chaudhary (Anchor and News Editor) and other social media users which can be viewed here and here.
What is the truth?
When the keyframes of the video are reverse searched, several results were found among which a video posted on the ‘WAR KUY’ Youtube channel on 17th September seems to be the oldest. This video mentioned ‘sumber : luxydwipriyanto0’ while displaying the viral clip. When translating ‘sumber’ to English, it is known that the Indonesian word ‘sumber’ refers to ‘source’.
When the name mentioned as source is searched, it is found that a tiktok video is mentioned as the source. This TikTok account seem to have posted many videos of people in military attire.
Another Youtube channel ‘Tribun Timur’ published this footage on 18, September 2022 mentioning the same TikTok video as the source
When the titles in the Indonesian language are searched, several Indonesian news portals seem to have published about this video.
‘RCTI Plus’ website published a few articles about the incident. One of the articles mentioned ‘Komando Pasukan Gerak Cepat (Kopasgat) TNI AU’ in bold letters while reporting (translated), “Through a video recording, it is seen that the snake is engrossed in approaching and wrapped around a rifle belonging to a member of the Indonesian Air Force’s Rapid Movement Command (Kopasgat) who is undercover.
How would you feel if you were in a position like this, wrote the Tiktok account @luxydwipriyanto quoted on Thursday (15/9/2022)”. This article also mentions the TikTok video as source.
‘Kopasgat’ is mentioned as the Indonesian Air Force’s Rapid Movement and found the same when searching for it. The website of ‘Kopasgat’ is also listed as a result of the search.
No clue about the video belonging to the Indian army is found anywhere when searched.
Conclusion
It is apparent that the video is from Indonesia and not from India’s Arunachal Pradesh proving to us that the sniper is not an Indian Army personnel.
Proof Links
