Varanasi Police have claimed that a video of uniformed cops watching and recording women dancers at the Baba Lat Bhairav procession is AI-generated.
BOOM examined multiple videos of the event, including footage shot from different angles, and found that the video is real and not synthetically generated or manipulated.
DCP Kashi's official X handle replied to a post shared by journalist Piyush Rai stating that the video showing women dancing at the traditional religious procession was AI generated and was being circulated to tarnish the image of Uttar Pradesh police.
The footage shows several police personnel near the stage, with some appearing to watch and record the performance on their phones.
The police handle further claimed that no policemen were seen in the videos recorded by the crowd.
Claim: Videos of police watching and recording women dance at the traditional Baba Lat Bhairav procession is AI Generated
Kashi Zone Deputy Commissioner of Police Gaurav Banshwal rejected the viral footage as AI-generated in a video byte too.
Banshwal claimed videos recorded by people attending the programme had been examined and that police personnel visible in the viral footage could not be seen on the mobile phone screens of people recording the performance.
On this basis, police said the viral footage showing the personnel had been generated using AI.
What We Found
1) Multiple videos show police personnel near the dancers
BOOM examined several videos of the cultural programme circulating on social media. The footage was recorded from different positions and angles at the venue.
Across multiple videos, the same dancers and police personnel can be seen around the stage. Their presence remains consistent despite changes in the camera position and angle.
BOOM also contacted an eyewitness who attended the event. The eyewitness shared several videos with us which showed police personnel near the stage while the same women were performing.
2) Police personnel are visible on spectators’ mobile screens
Varanasi Police claimed that the police personnel's absence from the screens of mobile phones being used to record the programme was a reason for calling the viral footage AI-generated.
However, BOOM found videos in which police personnel can be seen both near the stage and on the screens of mobile phones held by people recording the performance.
This contradicts the police’s claim that the personnel shown in the footage were absent in real videos recorded by people attending the event.
3) AI-detection tools do not flag videos as AI-generated
BOOM analysed three videos from the event using multiple AI-detection tools. HIVE returned a 0% probability of AI generation for Video 1 and 4% for Video 3. ZeroGPT classified all three videos as real, while Undetectable classified Video 1 as authentic.