US EditionIn Poonch, Even Silence Echoes With Shells
- On May 8, 2025, Maulana Mohammad Iqbal, a 46-year-old teacher, was killed by Pakistani shelling at Madrasa Zia-ul-Uloom in Poonch, Kashmir.
- The attack followed India’s Operation Sindoor on May 6-7, which targeted nine alleged terrorist bases in Pakistan after the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.
- Some Indian media channels labeled Iqbal a Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist involved in major attacks, but local police and community leaders refuted these claims as baseless.
- The shelling also injured three of Iqbal’s students and caused significant damage in Poonch, displacing residents amid ongoing cross-border artillery exchanges.
- This incident highlights heightened tensions along the Line of Control, with misinformation causing distress and calls for media to verify facts from official sources.
12 Articles
12 Articles
Media portrays teacher killed in Kashmir as terrorist, police refute
A teacher who was killed in an attack on Poonch, Kashmir, on Thursday, May 8, due to shelling from Pakistan, was labelled as a terrorist by some media organisations in India. However, police clarified that the victim identified as Qari Mohammad Iqbal was a teacher. The authorities dismissed claims of the media organisations, including News18, Zee News, and Republic TV, as “meaningless” and “baseless”. The 46-year-old Iqbal, a native of Village B…
Poonch madrasa teacher died in Pakistan shelling. Now, anger over his misidentification as 'terrorist'
Qari Mohammad Iqbal, the teacher, was wrongly portrayed as ‘terrorist’ by several media outlets. Other victims of Pakistan shelling recall blasts; some of them escaped miraculously.
Media Outlets Falsely Label Maulana Mohd Iqbal as ‘Terrorist’ Killed in Poonch
Fact-check | Media Outlets Falsely Label Maulana Mohd Iqbal as ‘Terrorist’ Killed in PoK’s Kotli. These claims are false, the man in the visuals lost his life due to cross-border shelling by Pakistan in Madrasa and he was not a terrorist.
Mainstream Media Misreports Civilian Killed in Poonch Shelling as A Terrorist - Newschecker
In wake of the precision strike by India in several locations in Pakistan, many mainstream media outlets and social media posts in India claimed that among those killed in Operation Sindoor on May 7 was one Maulana Mohd Iqbal, an LeT terrorist. Flashing the image of a slain man with a bloodied face, reports claimed that the ‘terrorist’ was killed in the Kotli terror camp in PoK. Among the mainstream media outlets that identified the deceased as …
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