No, Former Lt Gen Manoj Kumar Didn't Issue Warning About Arunachal Pradesh

We found out that the video was digitally altered, and Lt Gen Manoj Kumar has made no such statement.

A deepfake of Lieutenant General Manoj Kumar Katiyar (Retd) is going viral on social media, claiming to show a clip from February in which he warned that Arunachal Pradesh could become India's next major military flashpoint.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

A video is going viral on social media, claiming to show an old clip of former General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of India's Western Command, Lieutenant General Manoj Kumar Katiyar, warning that Arunachal Pradesh could become India's next major military flashpoint.

What does he say in the video?: In the video, he purportedly says that India-China tensions have increased, which has resulted in “deep worry about border security and army preparation.”

• He also goes on to say that the “situation in Arunachal Pradesh will have to be understood seriously” and that China has advanced approximately 25 kilometres into Indian territory, which India has been unable to control.

An archived version of this claim can be found here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

(Archived versions of similar claims can be found here, here, and here.)

Is it true?: No, the claim is false, as the video is a deepfake.

How did we find out?: We conducted a keyword search and couldn't find any credible sources sharing this video or reporting on it.

• Next, we ran a reverse image search on the video, which led us to a report by ANI from 30 March 2026.

• The video shows him speaking on the eve of his retirement.

• He speaks about his career and also highlights the work performed by Western Command during 'Operation Sindoor' as well as the flood that struck last year.

• He makes no statement about Arunachal Pradesh becoming the next 'major military flashpoint.'

Is it AI?: We ran the video through Hiya Deepfake Voice Detector, a tool that detects AI-generated audio, and it flagged the audio as AI.

The video got a very low authenticity score.

(Source: Hiya Deepfake Voice Detector/ Screenshot)

• We also ran the video through an AI detector, Hive Moderation, which flagged it as 99.4 percent likely to have AI-generated speech.

Here's the result of AI detection by Hive Moderation.

(Source: Hive Moderation/ Screenshot)

Indian Army's Clarification: The Indian Army's fact-checking unit also clarified that the video is digitally manipulated and that Lt Gen Manoj Kumar has made no statement about Arunachal Pradesh becoming the next major flashpoint.

Conclusion: The video is a deepfake and doesn't show actual statements made by Lt Gen Manoj Kumar (Retd).

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