No, Army General Didn’t Say Pakistan’s Capability ‘Surprised’ India

DCOAS Lt Gen Rahul R Singh did not make any statement about Pakistan surprising India with its capability.

A viral, fabricated statement about India being surprised by Pakistan's electronic warfare and C4 intelligence is being misattributed to DCOAS Lt Gen Rahul R Singh.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

A photograph of India's Deputy Chief of the Army Staff (DCOAS) Lieutenant General Rahul R Singh is being shared on social media, where users have attributed a statement related to Operation Sindoor to him.

What is the statement?: Text shared with his photo claims he said that Pakistan's electronic warfare and C4 (Command, Control, Communications, Computers) intelligence capability "truly surprised" the Indian side.

An archived version of this post can be seen here.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

Is it true?: No, there are no credible reports or press releases to corroborate the claim.

• Additionally, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) has clarified that the claim is false.

How do we know?: A reverse image search on the photograph led us to multiple news reports about Lt Gen Singh speaking at a conference organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) on 4 July in New Delhi.

• One such report by The Hindu mentioned that the spoke about Chinese involvement, the need for "indigenisation of defence technology," and robust air-defence systems at an event on "New Age Military Technologies”.

The report did not include any mention of Pakistan surprising India.

(Source: The Hindu/Screenshot)

• He said that China had used the conflict between India and Pakistan as a "live lab" to test its weapons against other weapons, the report added.

• Other articles by news publications NDTV and Live Hindustan also mentioned similar talking points, with the former mentioning that Lt Gen Singh called the India-Pakistan ceasefire a "masterly stroke."

• Digital news portal The Print also shared a portion of his speech on their verified YouTube channel.

• Additionally, FICCI too issued a press release carrying some of his statements from the event.

Their press release did not carry any statement which corroborated the claim.

(Source: FICCI/Screenshot)

• None of these reports and releases carried any statement about Singh saying that Pakistan's intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities surprising India.

PIB clarifies: After the claim gained traction, the PIB shared a post on their official fact-checking account on X, noting that these claims shared by "Pakistani propaganda accounts" were "fake."

Conclusion: A fabricated statement about India being surprised by Pakistan's "electronic warfare and C4 intelligence" is being falsely attributed to DCOAS Lt Gen Rahul Singh.

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