Clip of Indian commander discussing Pakistan drone damage is edited
- Published on October 7, 2025 at 08:11
- 2 min read
- By Masroor GILANI, AFP Pakistan
Copyright © AFP 2017-2025. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
"Indian Air Marshal Rakesh Sinha admitted that Pakistani drones reached Delhi and Gujarat, and that S-400 (air defence) systems were destroyed because of their surveillance," says a Facebook post shared September 25, 2025.
It includes a video of Sinha speaking to a reporter from India's PTI news agency.
"We are conducting exercise Cold Start, which will be conducted in first week of October in central sector. Since Pakistani drones infiltrated Delhi and Gujarat last time, PM Modi told us that there should be no more infiltration from Pakistani drones," he appears to say in the video.
"We have already lost two S-400 systems because of them. We will make sure that Pakistani drones don't beat us again."
Similar posts also surfaced on TikTok, X and YouTube several months after a surprise ceasefire halted days of jet fighter, missile, drone and artillery attacks between India and Pakistan in May that killed more than 70 people on both sides (archived link).
The fighting was touched off by an attack in the Indian-administered side of Kashmir that killed 26 tourists, mostly Hindu men, which Delhi blamed on Islamabad. Pakistan has denied any involvement and called for an independent probe.
At the time of the fighting, Pakistani media organisations reported drones were observed hovering over Delhi while Indian media said hundreds were seen in Kashmir, Punjab and Gujarat (archived here and here).
But there have been no official reports that Indian Air Marshal Rakesh Sinha recently announced Pakistan's drones damaged military facilities in Delhi and Gujarat.
A reverse image search of keyframes found PTI news agency uploaded Sinha's original interview on X on September 23 (archived link).
It does not show him speaking on infiltration by drones or the loss of India's defence systems.
Instead, he said the military would conduct an exercise in the first week of October "in central sector, where we are going to test drones and the counter-drone system."
"Participating is all three services, industry partners, (research and development) partners, academia, everyone will be there," he goes on to say in response to a reporter's question.
An AFP analysis of the video found signs of visual inconsistencies, including unsynchronised lip movements.
India's government fact-checking arm also said on Facebook the clip of Sinha was "digitally altered" (archived link).
Running the footage through the Deepfake Total detection tool shows a spike in the possibility that it was generated with AI at around the 11-second mark -- where the fabricated remarks can be heard (archived link).
AFP has previously debunked misinformation related to the India-Pakistan conflict here.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
