Air Marshall Chandrashekharan Hari Kumar is a very highly reputed and respected IAF officer. He served as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Air Command from 1 January 2017 to 28 February 2019. It can be seen that several users on social media, especially Pakistani users tweeted about him but claiming wrongly that he was ‘sacked’ or ‘replaced’ from his post. Some also mentioned that he had been sacked by the Indian Government because of losing several aircraft to Pakistan. Many users who claimed such things were journalists, news organisations and verified users.

Army News had published an article and also tweeted that India Sacks Air Marshall C Hari Kumar after India loses 8 warplanes in last one month.

The same claim was made by several other verified Pakistani handles.

Air Marshal C Hari Kumar was not sacked  

All these claims can be proven wrong as several official sources ( mentioned below ) confirmed that Air Marshal C Hari Kumar indeed retired after 39 years of dedicated career. The IAF took Facebook and Twitter to share officially about the retirement of the Air Marshal. The posts highlight his notable work, “The Air Marshal was commissioned in Flying Branch of Indian Air Force in the year 1979. He was a Qualified Flying Instructor and a Fighter Combat Leader having more than 3300 hours of flying to his credit “. His achievements and rewards were also mentioned on the IAF Facebook post,  “ For his distinguished service to the Nation, he was awarded Param Vishisht Seva Medal, Ati Vishisht Seva Medal, Vayu Sena Medal, Vishisht Seva Medal and appointed Honorary Air Force ADC to President of India on 01 Jan 2017 ”.

Even the official Twitter account of IAF posted the same information and linked the facebook post which contained elaborate information about his contribution, achievements, and involvement. The IAF also posted and tweeted about Air Marshal Raghunath Nambiar taking over as the Air Officer Commanding in Chief which was handed over to him by Air Marsha C Hari Kumar.

A detailed report about Air Marshal Raghunath Nambiar is also given on their Facebook page .

Even the Press Information Bureau tweeted about his retirement and even released an official report on it.

Analysis from OpIndia also shows that ‘Big News’ which was one of the first few websites to spread fake news is under a former Student Federation of India leader Shebeer KI. This news was further propagated by Daily Hunt which spread the news to millions. This lead to people sharing fake news. It is also questioned as to why Shebeer KI who is actively indulged in Politics would post an Anti-India type of news without verifying it.