A video featuring Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh went viral on social media, claiming that he visited the residence of Indian Air Force pilot and the first Indian woman to fly the French-made single-seat Rafale jet, Shivangi Singh, to comfort her mourning mother.
The claim: Those sharing the video claimed that the air force chief went to meet the pilot's family as she had reportedly gone missing.
Users wrote, "The Indian Air Chief met with the mother of missing Squadron Leader Shivangi Singh and assured her of efforts to locate the missing Rafale pilot Shivangi." (sic.)
What we found: Firstly, we ran a relevant keyword search and found that several social media handles based in Pakistan had been sharing claims about Singh's disappearance since May, when the armed conflict between India and Pakistan took place. You can see some of them here and here.
However, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) fact-checked these claims on 10 May and noted that Singh was not missing.
We, then, divided the viral video into multiple screenshots and ran a Google reverse image search on some of them.
This led us to a report by NDTV, uploaded on 14 August which included similar frames as the viral video.
The report stated that it shows Air Chief Singh meeting the family of the late Sergeant Kumar in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, who died in line of duty during Operation Sindoor.
This also led us to a post by the army on their official X account which stated, "Air Chief Marshal AP Singh along with Mrs Sarita Singh paid a visit to village Mehradasi in Jhunjhunu district, Rajasthan, hometown of late Sgt Surendra Kumar, who laid down his life in the line of duty during Op Sindoor." (sic.)
Further, the post noted that the army chief and his partner met at Kumar's home, and they met with his mother Mrs Nanu Devi, wife Mrs Seema and children Vritika & Daksh.
Notably, the army handle praised Jhunjhunu noting that it has a proud legacy of service to the nation, with 21,700 Ex-Servicemen hailing from the district and 3,552 serving air officers.
Additionally, PIB fact-check also debunked this viral claim on their official X page.
The post mentioned, "Squadron Leader Shivangi is a serving member of the IAF and remains deployed operationally." (six.)
Conclusion: The video has gone viral with a false claim that it shows Singh meeting 'missing' pilot Shivangi Singh's family, recently.
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