A video of Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Upendra Dwivedi is doing the rounds on social media platforms claiming that it showed him admitting that India had shared the location of an Iranian ship with Israel.
What did the video show?: In the 57-seconds-long clip, he can be heard saying, "We are closely monitoring the situation in Iran. Israel is our close ally. Iranian naval ship being sunk is indeed unfortunate but is was done in international waters. As long the Iranian ship remained in Indian waters, they remained protected but when they crossed the international waters, as Israeli's strategic allies, it was our duty to inform Israel about their exact location as part of our newer strategic deal..."
What's the truth?: The video has been manipulated using the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. There is no evidence to prove that General Dwivedi indeed made such a statement.
What led us to the truth?: We noticed that the viral video carried the official logo of media outlet 'FirstPost' on the top-left side.
Finding the original video: Taking a hint from the above finding, we searched for the clip on the media outlet's YouTube channel and came across the full-version of General Dwivedi's interview.
It was shared on 7 March and was titled, "India's Army Chief Speaks on Op Sindoor, Pakistan and Future of Warfare | Raisina Dialogue 2026."
The video showed General Dwivedi talking about the learnings from Operation Sindoor and how the army is monitoring the situation across the world.
We did not find any mention about the Iranian ship sinking or any statement that talked about India revealing the location to Israel.
What did detection tools show?: Team WebQoof passed the video through two AI tools namely — 'Hive Moderation' and 'DeepFake-O-Meter' to further verify its authenticity.
The first tool showed a conclusive result indicating that the viral video was indeed manipulated using AI.
Two detectors of the second tool gave over 99 percent probability of the video being an AI one.
The tool showed over 99 probability of the video being an AI one.
(Source: Hive Moderation/Screenshot)
PIB debunks the claim: The official X handle of Press Information Bureau's (PIB), too, debunked the claim and termed the video as "deepfake".
The post shared on 9 March further said, "Beware! This is an #AI-generated deepfake video shared to mislead the public. General Upendra Dwivedi has made NO such statement..."
Conclusion: It is evident that the video has been manipulated using the help of AI and does not show any real remarks made by General Dwivedi.
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