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India-Pakistan conflict: How a Deepfake video made it a mainstream

India-Pakistan conflict: How a Deepfake video made it a mainstream

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India and Pakistan acted blows in the last month after a militant attack on tourists in the Indian cashmere.

On May 7, India said that rocket attacks in Pakistan and Pakistan-released cashmere had launched. Pakistan – The participation in the April attack on tourists from whom most Indians were contested, then claimed to have shot down Indian drones and jets.

On both sides, claims and counterclaims of ongoing strikes and attacks have come to the fore. Some were difficult and independent to check what a vacuum created that made it possible to spread the disinformation.

For example, on May 8, a Deepfake video of US President Donald Trump was seen that he would “destroy” Pakistan, was quickly exposed by Indian facts. The effects were therefore minimal.

However, the same does not apply to another deep papal video that was discovered by BellingCat and at least one Pakistani outlet at the time of publication.

The changed video was shared almost 700,000 times at the time of publication on X (formerly Twitter) and claims to show a general in the Pakistani army, Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, and said Pakistan lost two of his planes.

A screen grave from a video of X (formerly) Twitter, which mistakenly claimed to show a video of a Pakistani general, in which two Pakistani jets had been shot down.

The video on X was later added to a community grade, in which it was detailed as “AI generated Deeppake”.

However, several Indian media companies had already taken up and run the story, including large branches such as NDTV. Other established news media, which contained quotes from the changed film material in their reporting, are the Free Press Journal, The Statesman and First Post.

Bellingcat was able to pay the video by finding another clip of the same press conference from last year. The video confirms that another audio has been added via the original film material, whereby Chaudhry's lips synchronize with the changed audio.

The position of the microphones, Chaudhry's position in relation to the flags and its movements are identical. Both videos that are cut to the audience, which is also the same.

You can see the video here in 2025 and the manipulated video on X here.

Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of the Indian facting checking organization Alt News, said Bellingcat, that in Indian social media there is often Mis-and dissinformation. Although it may be easy enough for trained facts to expose a deep pap that recycled an old video and manipulated the audio, Zubair was concerned that the common public could only hit the SHARE button due to its emotional attractiveness. “It is actually very worrying because it looks very convincing,” he said.

Bellingcat contacted NDTV, the Free Press Journal, the statesman and First Post about the details of this story, but received no answer before the publication.

NDTV and the statesman later deleted their reports without clarification. However, experts warn such videos as a warning of the persistent and developing dangers of disinformation.

Rachel Moran, senior research scientist at the Center of the University of Washington, for an informed public, said Bellingcat, that the speed at which such videos can be created and published is a new challenge.

“The information environment is already confused in times of crisis because we try to distinguish rumors from facts at speed,” said Moran. “The fact that we now have high -quality fake videos in the mix makes this process only more strenuous, less secure and can distract us from important true information.”

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