A video claiming to show Navy Chief Admiral Dinesh K. Tripathi criticising the Indian Air Force (IAF) by saying the Indian fighter jets were detected and tracked by advanced Pakistan Navy systems during Operation Sindoor, is fake.
BOOM found that the video has been altered with artificial intelligence (AI) to add a fake voice-over to it.
The doctored video is part of a co-ordinated influence operation carried out by a cluster of X handles are targeting India in a bid to destabilise the online discourse through a mix of videos manipulated with AI, fake quotes, bogus letters and fabricated news articles.
The navy chief admiral also appears to be saying the following: "If we had deployed major naval assets forward; even a minor contact or exaggerated claim could have been turned into a global embarrassment. Keeping our capital ships inside was a deliberate forced protection and perception management choice." (sic)
The Claim
An X account by the handle @AzizRehman1011 posted the video with the caption, "Breaking News Navy Chief Dinesh K Tripathi throws shade at the Indian Air Force: “Keeping our capital ships inside was a strategic move deny Pakistan the drama they crave. The Navy safeguarded its credibility. Maybe the Air Force should note: sometimes the strongest response is refusing to play the enemy’s script.”"
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
What We Found: Viral Video Is AI Manipulated
1. The Original Press Conference: We ran a related keyword search on YouTube and found the original press conference by Chief of Naval Staff Dinesh K. Tripathi that was streamed live on ANI's official YouTube channel on December 2, 2025. When compared, we also found a match between the visuals in the viral video and the annual press briefing by Tripathi held in New Delhi.
We did not any remarks that match the statements in the viral video.
2. AI Detector Tool Flags Manipulation: Taking a cue, we tested the video on the AI detector tool Deepfake-o-Meter, developed by the University of Buffalo. The tool used multiple deepfake detection models, and several of them indicated possible AI manipulation in the viral video.
The Press Information Bureau’s fact checking wing also clarified that Admiral Tripathi never issued any remarks like the ones heard in the viral video.