Separately, on 30 April,

Elsewhere, one set of photos purported to show an operation carried out by the Pakistan Air Force targeting "Indian forward air-bases in the early hours of 6 May 2025". The images - which appeared to be captured by a drone - were actually screengrabs taken from the video game Battlefield 3.The Pakistani military says it destroyed five jets on Wednesday morning local time. That announcement has led to some users sharing unrelated clips which they claimed showed the wreckage of Indian fighter jets. Some of these videos have obtained millions of views.

But two widely shared images actually showed previous Indian air force jet crashes - one from an incident in Rajasthan in 2024 and another in the Punjab state in 2021. Both crashes were widely reported.Prof Indrajit Roy of York University said that the images "are being generated with a view to get support for the military in Pakistan". One clip circulated by the Pakistani military itself was later withdrawn by news agencies after it turned out to be from an unrelated event."We have jingoists on both sides of the border, and they have a huge platform on Twitter (X). You can see how fake news, as well as some real news, gets amplified, distorted and presented in ways designed to generate hostility, animosity and hatred for the other side."

The conflict in Kashmir has long attracted a high degree of misinformation online. In the aftermath of the deadly militant attack on Indian tourists in Pahalgam last month, AI images circulated - with some seeking to dramatise actual scenes from the attack.Vedika Bahl, a journalist with France 24, said the Pahalgam attacks had prompted a sharp "uptake in misinformation from both sides surrounding the conflict".

"Lots of this misinformation begins on X," she said. "Eventually this trickles down over time from X to WhatsApp which is the communication tool which is most used in South Asian communities."

The government ended a wave of public sector strikes last summer when it accepted, in full, the recommendations of independent public sector pay review bodies to increase the pay of teachers, nurses and others.The statement came a day after the Indian embassy in Iran said that it had "strongly taken up this matter with Iranian authorities" and requested that the missing Indians be "urgently traced and their safety ensured".

Many Indians, particularly from Punjab, travel to developed countries in search of job opportunities and a better life.Some fall victim to scams run by travel agents, who charge exorbitant fees and send them through illegal or unsafe routes, often without proper documentation.

Gurdeep Kaur recounted the events that led to her 23-year-old son Amritpal Singh going missing to BBC Punjabi.The family had hired a travel agent in Hoshiarpur - where they live - to secure an Australian work permit for her son.