In May 2025, an overwhelming 68 per cent of BOOM's fact-checks revolved around India's Operation Sindoor, and the ensuing armed conflict with Pakistan.
During this time, we saw rampant use of unrelated footage from foreign conflicts—mostly from the Middle East—being falsely linked to the Indo-Pak conflict, along with significant use of generative AI to create falsehood around the topic.
Among other trends, we found unrelated visuals of aircrafts and pilots being misrepresented as the Indian Air Force's efforts in conducting air strikes, false stories of attacks in India and Pakistan, and a slew of forged or fake official government notices.
Operation Sindoor—A misinformation superspreader
On May 7, 2025, India launched Operation Sindoor in retaliation to a Pakistan-linked terror attack on April 22 in Pahalgam, Kashmir, which killed 26 tourists. The conflict lasted four days—ending on May 10, with both countries agreeing to a ceasefire.
Out of the 101 fact-checks published by BOOM in English, Hindi and Bangla, 69 were related to the conflict.
In the four days of active conflict and in the days that followed, we also fact-checked misinformation propelled by news outlets, parody accounts posing as military officials and even video game clips falsely shared as real scenes of airstrikes.
We found that 64.4 per cent of the total published fact-checks contained old and unrelated claims. We also published 13 AI-related fact-checks, which included 7 videos, 3 AI images and deepfakes each.
Additionally, disinformation was primarily targeted at both Pakistan and India, focusing particularly on the Pakistani government, Army, Air Force, and civilians, as well as the Indian Army, Air Force, and general public.
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Disinformation Trends
The use of recycled conflict and other footage
BOOM found that a key disinformation tactic used during the India-Pakistan conflict involved repurposing international conflict footage—from Israel, Palestine, Iran and Sudan— and falsely localising it to fit the India-Pakistan narrative. These old or unrelated videos are often reframed with new captions.
For instance, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s ruling political party, along with several social media users, shared a video montage depicting missile strikes and explosions — claiming it showed recent Indian airstrikes on Pakistani targets.
However BOOM found that footage showed Iranian missiles targeting Israel's Nevatim airbase in Negev desert.
News outlets including Aaj Tak, Business Today, and ABP News aired old footage of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, falsely showing it as visuals of India’s airstrike on Pakistan. We found that the video was from Israeli strikes on Gaza in October 2023.
We also debunked a viral video claiming to show damage at Pakistan’s Nur Khan Airbase after an Indian strike. BOOM found that the footage was originally from Sudan’s Khartoum International Airport, seized by the Sudanese army from Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in March 2025. Clues like the name "Tarco" (a Sudanese airline) and "Sudan" written on a plane's tail wing led us to the origin of the video.
Misattributed plane crash/pilot narratives
We debunked viral images of plane wreckage falsely claimed to show two Indian Rafale jets shot down by the Pakistan Air Force. However, the photos were from unrelated Indian Air Force crashes — a MiG-21 in Punjab (2021) and a MiG-29 in Rajasthan (2024) —reframed to fit the recent conflict narrative.
Similarly, videos claiming to show IAF pilots being rescued by locals or injured after a jet was shot down in retaliation to Operation Sindoor also went viral. However, we found that these clips were unrelated — one was from February 2025, and the other dated back to 2019.
False attack messages/visuals
A false, panic-inducing message claiming that ATMs in India would be shut down due to a ransomware attack from Pakistan went viral and was misreported by several news outlets, including Times Now, Zee News, ABP News, Jagran, and Lokmat. We found that this claim is an old hoax that has resurfaced multiple times since 2017. The State Bank of India also issued a clarification, confirming that ATMs would remain fully functional.
AI generated content and deepfakes
BOOM observed the use of AI and deepfake videos to fabricate videos of political and military figures falsely admitting defeat or issuing apologies. These deepfakes targeted both sides, with viral clips showing Pakistan conceding to India and vice versa.
In one instance, we debunked a deepfake video showing Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif publicly admitting defeat to India. In other videos, we debunked AI videos of politicians such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, External Affairs minister S. Jaishankar, and Home Minister Amit Shah apologising and conceding defeat to Pakistan.
Forged/Fake official government notices
Fake circulars and notices also went viral during the conflict — one falsely claimed the University Grants Commission (UGC) had cancelled all exams due to Operation Sindoor, while another alleged that former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan had died in jail.
The UGC officially denied issuing any such notice. As for the claim about Khan, the document was riddled with spelling errors, lacked a proper date and official signature, and was confirmed as fake by his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
The Other Topics Of Misinformation In May
Apart from fact-checks related to ‘Operation Sindoor’, BOOM also debunked misinformation around politician Manoharlal Dhakad’s case involving obscene acts with a woman. Additionally, BOOM debunked misleading claims related to the U.S. President Donald Trump's visits to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations, the Bihar Assembly elections, IPL 2025, and the spread of the JN.1 COVID-19 variant in India, among other topics.
Medium, Intent & Type of Deception
58.4 per cent of the 101 fact-checks were shared via videos containing texts, followed by images and text (38.6 per cent).
Regarding the intent behind spreading mis/disinformation, 99 per cent of the total fact-checks were under the “Sensationalist” category. 71.3 per cent of the total fact-checks consisted of false content, followed by fabricated content (12.9 per cent), misleading content (9.9 per cent) and manipulated content (5.9 per cent).