ISPR slams India's 'Bollywood-style' documentary projecting last year's 'military blunder as a successful endeavour'

The military’s media affairs wing on Tuesday slammed India’s “Bollywood-style” documentary on its ‘Operation Sindoor’, saying it had “cobbled together a propaganda video to project a military blunder as a successful endeavour”.

In a statement, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said, “More than a year after Marka-i-Haq, India refuses to face the harsh reality. Instead of conceding defeat in a failed venture, India has decided to colour history in her preferred hues.”

Last year’s brief military conflict with India — starting from the April 22 Pahalgam attack to the end of Operation Bunyanum Marsoos with a ceasefire between the two countries following the intervention of the United States on May 10 — has been called “Marka-i-Haq” (Battle of Truth) by the state.

“To achieve this mutilation of history, Indian content creators have produced a highly dramatised, coloured and factually inaccurate account of so-called Operation Sindoor, packaged as a documentary featuring senior political and military leadership of India,” ISPR said.

Operation Sindoor is the term New Delhi used for its strikes on Pakistan on May 7, 2025.

“For its lack of nuance and seriousness, the documentary can be characterised as a tragedy and a comedy at the same time. Selectively edited interviews, emotional narration and cinematic Bollywood style reconstruction have been used to alter established facts and rewrite the operational outcome,” it said.

The statement said that the documentary’s account contained “fundamental contradictions, exposing a belated attempt to manufacture a domestically palatable version of events”.

ISPR said the documentary attempted to establish a deliberate linkage between an address by the army chief on April 16, 2025 and the Pahalgam incident on April 22, 2025, “conjuring a conspiracy theory out of nothing”.

“More significantly, India subsequently claimed that the three alleged perpetrators of Pahalgam were identified and eliminated on July 28, 2025, 82 days after so-called Operation Sindoor. Yet the documentary presents so-called Operation Sindoor as the punishment for those responsible for Pahalgam. If the alleged perpetrators were eliminated on July 28, India must explain, who it claims to have punished on May 7, 2025,” ISPR said.

The statement further said that the claim of “100 per cent mission success” was “equally detached from operational record”.

“During Marka-i-Haq, Pakistan’s armed forces successfully thwarted Indian aggression and shot down 8 military aircraft. Pakistan subsequently conducted Operation Bunyanum Marsoos, employing Fatah precision-guided rockets and missiles, PAF precision munitions, long-range loitering munitions and precision artillery against 26 military targets, including facilities used to target Pakistani citizens, and entities involved in fomenting terrorism against Pakistan,” it said.

It went on to say that the documentary itself undermined its claim of clear Indian dominance.

“Indian military leadership acknowledges extensive Pakistani missile, drone and air activity, sustained engagements along the Line of Control and the activation of Indian air-defence systems. Such admissions are difficult to reconcile with its repeated portrayal of Pakistan being decisively defeated,” it said.

“The documentary’s account of the cessation of hostilities is no less revealing. Its own narration confirms that hostilities ended through communication between the two director general military operations and an agreed cessation of military action. This alone contradicts the attempt to portray Operation Sindoor as a unilateral Indian military triumph. A cessation of hostilities, facilitated by the United States, cannot subsequently be repurposed as evidence of unconditional victory,” it said.

ISPR said the documentary also contradicted itself on escalation dynamics. It repeatedly emphasised “surprise, precision, deep strikes and escalation dominance, while simultaneously claiming that India deliberately limited the conflict and provided Pakistan an ‘exit window’“.

“These competing claims expose the production as a carefully constructed domestic narrative rather than an objective military account. India has not declassified the truth. It has cobbled together a propaganda video to project a military blunder as a successful endeavour,” it said.

“No amount of cinematic reconstruction can change the chronology, erase aircraft losses, conceal military casualties, alter the military engagements that actually took place or convert a battlefield defeat into a self-proclaimed victory,” ISPR asserted.

“Pakistan has no need to manufacture a narrative around Marka-i-Haq. The operational record, battlefield evidence, diplomatic exchanges and India’s own subsequent statements speak for themselves and are widely acknowledged by international community.

“Pakistan remains committed to regional peace and stability. At the same time, the armed forces of Pakistan remain fully prepared and capable of defending the country’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and national interests. Any future military misadventure will be met with a firm, decisive and disproportionate response, after which no amount of cinematic perjury will be able to provide any face-saving to India,” the statement concluded.