A deepfake video of Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) of the Pakistan Armed Forces, is viral claiming the country has admitted to losing two fighter jets amidst an escalating military conflict with India.
Professor Hany Farid, a forensic expert in synthetic media at UC Berkeley confirmed to BOOM that the viral clip is a deepfake.
India and Pakistan dangerously escalated their armed confrontation late into Thursday night, with the two nuclear-armed states accusing each other of attacking military sites. Heavy shelling and strikes were reported overnight on each side of their border especially in Jammu, Udhampur and Pathankot, with missiles and drones seen flying past through the night sky.
The latest military face-off began on May 7, 2025, when India launched a military strike on Pakistan, as retaliation for the terror attack in Pahalgam in which 26 people were killed. The deepest strike inside Pakistan in decades, Indian defence forces have in press briefings said the country remains prepared for all forms of escalation.
The viral deepfake shows Chaudhry at a press briefing where after talking about the ongoing military tensions between the two countries, he admits that India has shot down two Pakistani fighter jets.
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The video is viral on X and WhatsApp claiming official confirmation by the Pakistani government about losing two aircraft in combat.
BOOM received the video on its Tipline for Misinformation (+91 77009 06111) from readers asking us to verify its authenticity.
Fact Check
BOOM first analysed the visual part and ran reverse image searches on a few keyframes and found a December 27, 2024 Facebook Live posted by Pakistani media outlets.
The visuals of the journalists present at the briefing and the background seen in the video below match those in the viral video making it clear that the viral clip is not a recent press conference.
BOOM reached out to Professor Hany Farid at the UC Berkeley and Chief Science Officer at GetReal Security who specialises in digital forensics and AI misinformation to confirm its authenticity.
In an email reply to BOOM, Farid said they analysed the audio with models trained to distinguish natural speech from AI-generated speech, finding results that it was a deepfake. "These models convincingly flag the voice as AI-generated," Faird said on the audio adding, there were "clear misalignments between the mouth movement and the audio suggesting that it is a lip-sync deepfake" where the original video was modified to try to be consistent with the AI voice.
We then tested the audio on Hiya, an audio detection tool, conclusively confirming the voice was generated or modified by AI, with only 2 percent match with live human markers.
While unverified reports claim India has shot down two Pakistan Air Force jets , there has been no official confirmation at the time of publishing this story. BOOM has also reached out to the Indian Air Force spokesperson and the story will be updated upon getting a response.
