It started off as a joke.
A 22-year-old journalism student in Lucknow's Ruchi Khand neighbourhood used ChatGPT to add a leopard to a selfie of himself on his balcony.
He sent the altered image to a WhatsApp group of friends. One friend in the group shared the photo with another WhatsApp group.
Within hours, local cops and forest officials geo-located the image and showed up at his doorstep after frantic calls from residents about a leopard on the loose.
The boy was let off with a warning. Sitting in the back of a police van, the cops made him record a video in which he admitted to creating the fake image. "No FIR has been filed," Ashish Srivastava, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Central Lucknow told Decode. "But spreading rumors is a punishable offense under Section 353 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. People using AI tools to mislead others and create chaos should keep this in mind."
Altered image showing a leopard in the background made with Open AI's ChatGPT
A Wave Of Hoaxes
Since late September, forest department officials, police and local administrators have been battling complaints of leopard sightings and trying to calm worried residents of Lucknow’s Rajni Khand, Ruchi Khand and Ashiana neighbourhoods.
All of the six or seven images that went viral in these areas so far turned out to be hoaxes, several created with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).
The hoaxes have stretched resources of local police and the forest department which have had to scan through hours of CCTV footage, create patrol teams that work in shifts, inspect the area for signs of leopard paw prints and question local residents.
Abhishek Verma, a forest beat officer, said complaints started around September 22. When two photos showing a leopard on the streets reached a WhatsApp group that included a local councillor, the investigation began in earnest.
"When we reached the house of the boy shown in the viral photo, he happened to be standing on the balcony," Verma said. "He admitted to using a GPT app to edit the photo on his mobile. Both the original and edited images were recovered from his phone. He said it was meant as a prank."
Another photo claimed a leopard was spotted in Saleh Nagar, hiding behind a mini truck. When forest officials arrived, local residents told them it was fake. No paw prints were found.
Local Councillors Add To The Confusion
Brijmohan Sharma, a Bharatiya Janata Party councillor of Ibrahimpur, an area close to Ashiana, told Decode that he called the forest department after seeing one of the photos, believing it to be real.
“The photo was shared in a children’s WhatsApp group, and when my wife saw it, she became alarmed and called me immediately. I contacted a friend in the forest department and sent him the picture. Later, we discovered that the image was fake.”
Brijmohan added that the 22-year old who created the AI image is his friend’s son. “He is good in studies and a state-level cricketer. He and my children had created a WhatsApp group where he shared the photo as a joke. And the house from which it was taken was in front of my old property, which I had sold.”
Himanshu Ambedkar, a councilor of Sharda Nagar 1st ward, had a similar anecdote to narrate. After receiving calls from worried residents, he went around the locality with loudspeakers to make public announcements urging people to stay indoors, keep their windows shut, and not let children outside.
Forest Officers Turn To AI
Divisional Forest Officer Sitanshu Pandey said the misinformation wasted resources and created panic. “On the night of September 26, our team received a call reporting a leopard sighting. When they reached the spot, it turned out to be just a black dog."
The department deployed nine teams—three per shift. Officers questioned residents and reviewed 10 to 12 hours of CCTV footage. No trace of a leopard.
The next day, two to three new photos emerged. Examining the images, the team noticed the pixels were too large, suggesting someone hadn't captured the photo quickly in fear. "Normally, leopards or tigers move calmly and sit quietly when they feel safe," Pandey explained.
The team used ChatGPT, Perplexity Pro, and Grok AI to analyze the images. The chatbots indicated the photos appeared to be inaccurate stock images placed onto local scenery.
Still, Pandey didn't completely rule out a leopard's presence. A video from the Cantonment area showed a wild animal crossing in front of a car. "The Cantonment has a very dense forest spread across 40-50 acres. There is a possibility of a leopard being there. But a leopard living in a concrete locality is not digestible."
Small footprints found in the Cantonment measured only 7 cm, likely a fishing cat or wild cat. A leopard's paw length is typically 10–11 cm.
Former Divisional Forest Officer Ravi Singh said that during his tenure, unrelated videos would circulate whenever an incident occurred. But leopard movement in Lucknow is real. "The forest areas near Sitapur and Barabanki are where animals often come from, and they may enter urban areas from there."
"During any human-animal encounter, the situation becomes tense because both sides may react defensively," Singh explained. "Response time is critical—incidents can unfold within half an hour, and by the time the team arrives, the animal may have moved away."
The Uttar Pradesh Forest Department follows SOPs issued by the National Tiger Conservation Authority for handling rescue operations involving big cats.
ChatGPT In India: From Homework To Hoaxes
India is home to the largest student population on ChatGPT globally, OpenAI said recently.
Half of ChatGPT users in India are below 24 years of age and turn to the app for help with homework, exam prep, and to explore new ideas Leah Belsky, Vice President and General Manager, Education at OpenAI, was reported to have said in August.
A large young population which is tech savvy and eager to explore AI has meant generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity AI and Google’s Gemini are seeing rapid adoption in the country.
While these tools have been marketed as productivity and creativity aids, increasing realism of their output particularly of images and videos has led to an increase in AI slop, and misinformation.
Not just ChatGPT, BOOM Live reported how Google’s Nano Banana text-to-image generator can be misused to create political disinformation.
Leopard Hoax Persists
Even after the administration debunked the viral leopard photo as AI generated, confusion persisted among some residents. An Instagram handle shared a picture with the caption, “Leopard just spotted in front of House No. 3/40, Ruchi Khand 1st. Stay alert, stay cautious.”
A screenshot of Vicky's mobile showing the image where he added a tiger to a photo using Gemini.
But when forest officials asked a woman living in the area to verify the claim, she said she hadn't seen any leopards there.
Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav also posted an image of a leopard sitting in front of a car in Ruchi Khand 1, with a cheeky caption asking if the government was aware of what was going on.
However, Vicky, a resident of the same locality visited the exact spot and debunked the photo as fake. He showed his WhatsApp status, where he had used Gemini to edit a photo from the same location, this time replacing the leopard with a tiger, to show how easy it was to create such images.
