A photo of a sadhu being arrested by the police at the Kumbh Mela is viral claiming he is a terrorist named Ayub Khan, who disguised himself as a sadhu.
BOOM spoke to Uttar Pradesh Police who confirmed that the claim is false and that no such person with terror links was arrested from the Mela. We also confirmed that the viral photo has been generated using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The photo is being shared with a caption, "'Ayub Khan' a militant was arrested in Kumbh Mela in Uttar Pradesh,. He had come as a sadhu and mingled with our sadhus. He had conspired to commit the greatest crime that his cult teaches. By God's grace, our sadhus noticed the actions of this terrorist and handed him over to the police."
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Fact Check
BOOM found the claim of an Ayub Khan arrested from Kumbh Mela is misleading and the viral photo used to support the claim is AI generated.
We first ran a search for reports on the arrest of an Ayub Khan, as mentioned in the claim and found no news reports. However a further search led us to news reports about a youngster, Ayub Ali who was detained from the Kumbh Mela premises after he was caught suspiciously loitering around some camps.
Dainik Bhaskar reported the incident and clarified that Ali had accidentally entered the Mela area, being unaware that entry was only allowed after permission.
We then reached out to Rajesh Dwivedi, the Senior Superintendent of Police, Kumbh who confirmed that a youngster named Ayub Ali had been detained but clarified that he had been let go after questioning.
"We had detained Ayub Ali, a labourer, suspecting he might have malicious intent. Initially, there was confusion about his name, then he himself clarified that his name is Ayub Ali. After interrogating him, we found nothing suspicious. Preventive action has been taken, and he is not in our custody."
When asked about the viral claim, Dwivedi said, "The claim is false. No militant named Ayub Khan, disguised as a Sadhu in Kumbh Mela was arrested."
Additionally, a reverse image search on the viral photograph showed found no credible source with the same information.
Noticing some glitches in the photo, we tested it on Hive Moderation, a tool that helps detect visuals generated using artificial intelligence. The result from Hive Moderation indicated that the image is AI-generated, stating that the input is 97.4 per cent likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content.
The Kumbh Mela, is a Hindu religious gathering that takes place once every 12 years and is globally known as one of the largest religious gatherings. The Mahakumbh Mela, the grander version of the event happens once every 144 years, marking this year as the 12th Maha Kumbh. The high security event held from January 13 to February 26, 2025, will see millions of Hindu devotees gathered at the banks of the Ganga in Uttar Pradesh. The crowd is made up of lakhs of sadhus, naga sadhus, a variety of Hindu religious groups and thousands of domestic and international tourists, with authorities expecting over 450 million visitors.
