Conspiracy theories have always accompanied the sudden deaths of prominent military people around the world, and the case of India’s first Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat is no different. In the wake of the crash of a Mi-17 helicopter near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu that killed Rawat, his wife, and 12 other passengers, several conspiracy theories are circulating on social media.
Several aviation experts and sources contend that bad weather and ‘controlled flying into terrain’ may have caused the incident, and a tri-service probe is currently underway. Pakistan’s disinformation networks have begun a sinister social media campaign to attribute the crash to an insurgent strike, internal sabotage, or maybe even a communal attack. None of the allegations have been substantiated.
It was revealed in a report by Logically, a tech company that counter-disinformation analysts, that some Pakistani Twitter accounts had reinforced versions of these conspiracy ideas. In particular, one commonly heard accusation is that the helicopter was shot down by ‘Tamil rebels’, a reference to the long-defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a rebel group in Sri Lanka that has been dormant since it was defeated by the Sri Lankan military in 2009.
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Pakistani accounts have promoted the theory, along with many others, obviously in an effort to exploit the presence of pro-Tamil Eelam sympathizers in Tamil Nadu. One of them, a blog that claims to be a think tank, claimed that Tamil rebels were to blame for the helicopter accident. The post was eventually withdrawn, and the Tamil Nadu Crime Branch Central Investigation Department filed a case against this Twitter handle.
The self-proclaimed think tank released a video on December 14 with yet another conspiracy theory claiming the crash was caused by an inside job. Several Pakistani Twitter accounts responded to the video enthusiastically, reassuring Kashmiri terrorists that Tamil rebels and Khalistanis will soon be at their side.
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