Clip of DRDO Chairman Talking About Washing Missile in Cow Urine Is Manipulated

The video of Kamat speaking about Agni 6 has been manipulated using AI.

An AI-manipulated video of DRDO's chairman is being shared to falsely claim that he spoke about purifying missiles using cow dung and urine.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

A video of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Chairman Samir V Kamat talking about the indigenously developed Agni 6 intercontinental missile is being shared on social media.

What is the claim?: In the clip, Kamat is heard talking about making changes to the Agni 6 ballistic missile programme.

"...Prime Minister Modi specifically told us that all missiles should be washed with pavitra cow urine before they are made. First we soak the missile parts into urine, but they started getting rust so now we use a mixture of cow dung and urine to prevent rust. As you know, cow dung is also anti-bacterial, so now our missile is uncontaminated, and this is the secret ingredient behind the robust Indian missile programme," he purportedly says.

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

(Archived versions of more posts sharing this claim can be seen here and here.)

But...?: The claim is false, as his original speech makes no mention of cow urine or dung.

• The video in the claim has been altered using Artificial Intelligence (AI), making it a manipulated video.

How did we find out the truth?: We ran a reverse image search on the video, which led us to a video shared by ANI Digital's official X account.

• Here, came across a short clip of Kamat responding to a moderator's question about missile, specifically Agni 6. Here, he did not mention cows in any capacity.

• The post noted that the interaction happened during ANI National Security Summit 2.0.

• We looked for the full version of Kamat's interaction on ANI's YouTube channel, where we found a 65-minute video of Kamat on a panel with Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh and Air Marshal Ashutosh Dixit.

At the 58:40 timestamp, ANI editor Ajit Kumar Dubey asks the three about a missile like the Agni 6, if and when it was coming. To this, Kamat says, “No comments, this is the government’s decision. We are ready whenever the government gives the go ahead," adding that it was "up to the political leadership" to do so.

There was no mention of cow dung, cow urine, or purification of missiles anywhere throughout the discussion.

Is it AI?: Since we found that the portion in the viral claim was fabricated, we ran it through two AI-generated content detection tools.

• Hiya's Deepfake Voice Detector gave it a score of 11 out of 100, noting that the sampled voice was "likely a deepfake."

The audio is a deepfake.

(Source: Hiya/Screenshot)

• Similarly, Hive Moderation's tool, too, gave the audio element a 67.7 percent likelihood of containing AI-generated speech.

The audio element was found to be carrying AI-generated speech.

(Source: Hive Moderation/Screenshot)

Conclusion: An AI-manipulated video is being shared to falsely claim that DRDO chairman Samir Kamat said that the Agni 6 missile was being 'purified' with cow urine and cow dung.

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