No, News18 Didn’t Say Brigadier, Son Were Attacked After Criticising Op Sindoor

The video has been altered using AI to falsely claim that the brigadier and his son were assaulted over Op Sindoor.

A video, purportedly showing a CNN-News18 report, is being shared on social media.

The claim: In the report, the anchors talk about an incident in Delhi's Vasant Enclave, where an active brigadier in the Indian Army, along with his son, were reportedly assaulted for criticising Operation Sindoor.

• The text being shared with the video claims that "RSS supported mobs" attacked the military man after his criticism.

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

Is it true?: No, the claim is misleading, as the video has been altered using AI.

• The Brigadier was attacked after he and his son raised their voices against a group of people for drinking in public.

How did we find out the truth?: We ran a keyword search for CNN-News18's report on the incident, and found that they had published the report on YouTube on 13 April.

• It said that the Brigadier and his son, Tejas, were assaulted on 11 April after the former objected to a group of men drinking in public in Delhi's Vasant Enclave.

• Tejas told News18 that after they were assaulted, the police failed to file an FIR immediately, asking them to register a Medico-Legal Case (MLC) first.

• Other reports by Hindustan Times and The Print corroborate these details, categorically stating that the assault happened after the brigadier and his son objected to public drinking.

• A total of six people have been arrested in connection to the assault as on 17 April, The Times of India reported.

None of these reports mentioned Operation Sindoor, any criticism of the government, or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), as claimed.

Is it AI?: The audio in the viral claim, which differs what we hear in the video, starts 20 seconds into the clip shared in the claim.

• We ran this part through Hiya's Deepfake Voice Detector, which gave the audio an authenticity score of four out of 100, calling it a deepfake.

• Hive Moderation's tool gave the same audio a 79.3 percent chance of being made or altered using AI.

Conclusion: An AI-manipulated video is being shared to falsely claim that a brigadier and his son were assaulted in Delhi after they criticised Operation Sindoor.

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