Clip of Ex-COAS Upendra Dwivedi Criticising Centre Over Op Sindoor Is a Deepfake

The video is a deepfake. Former COAS General Dwivedi did not make such a statement.

A deepfake is being shared to falsely claim that former COAS General Upendra Dwivedi announced his resignation while talking about the government choosing to hide casualties related to Operation Sindoor.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

A video of former Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Upendra Dwivedi, purportedly criticising the Centre and Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh over hiding details about those who were killed in action during Operation Sindoor is being shared on social media.

What does he say?: In the video, General Dwivedi, who appears to announce his retirement, purportedly says that the Army was being made a scapegoat for hiding the number of casualties during Operation Sindoor in 2025 and that he was resigning in protest over the blame game.

"It was Centre's decision to hide the casualties in Operation Sindoor. Minister Rajnath Singh clearly said in Parliament on oath that Indian Army suffered no losses and now people like Vikram Misri are being used to set blame on military leadership, exonerating the political decision making, which we followed."

An archived version of this post can be seen here.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.)

Is it true?: No, the video is a deepfake. There is no evidence of former COAS General Dwivedi making such a statement.

How did we find out the truth?: We looked for details about General Dwivedi's resignation, but did not find any posts or reports from any credible sources that supported the claim about him resigning.

• Instead, we came across articles by DD News and Outlook, which said that General Dwivedi had retired after four decades of service.

General Dwivedi has retired, not resigned.

(Source: Outlook/Screenshot)

• A keyword search for his statement regarding casualties in Operation Sindoor also did not yield any credible results.

• We then carried out a reverse image search on the video, which led us to an X post by news agency ANI, which carried the same visuals.

• However, in this video, General Dwivedi spoke in Hindi, expressing gratitude and pride in having the opportunity to serve in the Indian Army. He went on to talk about the Army striving to serve the nation regardless of terrain and serving people around the world during disasters through United Nations' deployment.

There was no mention of the casualties during Operation Sindoor, the defence minister, or him resigning.

Is it AI?: We ran the audio track through Hiya's Deepfake Voice Detector, which gave it an authenticity score of seven out of 100, noting that the voice was a deepfake.

The audio is a deepfake.

(Source: Hiya/Screenhsot)

Defence Ministry clarifies: Sharing a post on Instagram, the Defence Ministry clarified that the viral video was an "AI-generated deepfake video," clarifying that General Dwivedi did not make any such statement, and had retired "in accordance with tenure norms."

Conclusion: A deepfake is being shared to falsely claim that former COAS General Upendra Dwivedi announced his resignation while talking about the government choosing to hide casualties related to Operation Sindoor.

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