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Fact Check
Claim: A photo claiming to show a distraught Himanshi Narwal near the body of her Navy officer husband, Vinay Narwal, who was killed by terrorists in Pahalgam; another video claims to show prayer sessions held in the meadow after the attack.
Fact: The visuals were found to be AI-generated.
Following the deadly terror attack in Pahalgam, where terrorists gunned down 26 tourists at Baisaran meadow, in the north Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, a set of images, purportedly of the aftermath of the attack, have been going viral in Sri Lanka on TikTok and YouTube. Due to the nature of this attack and the larger impact on South Asia, the Newschecker team decided to look into the veracity of these claims.
Several TikTok posts show a visibly emotional Himanshi Narwal, sitting beside her slain husband, Indian Navy officer Lieutenant Vinay Narwal. These posts went viral on the heels of the photograph of a silently grieving Himanshi, sitting beside Vinay, which has now become the defining image of the attack.
Posts with this image can be found here, here, here, and here.
We noticed the overly smooth and painting-like texture of the new photo, a sign of AI-generated media. We decided to check the image using AI detectors Hive Moderation and WasItAI.
Hive Moderation
Result: 82.1% likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content
WasItAI
Result: This image or a significant part of it was created by AI.
A 39-second-long video, showing several prayer sessions at the Baisaran meadow, has gone viral on TikTok and YouTube.
The claim can be found here, here, and here.
We noticed the unnaturally slow movements in the video as well as the blurry arms and feet of the citizens pictured. We decided to run two keyframes of this video past Hive Moderation and WasItAI.
Keyframe 1 on Hive Moderation:
Result: 95.8% likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content
Keyframe 1 on WasItAI
Result: This image or a significant part of it was created by AI.
Keyframe 2 on Hive Moderation:
Result: 94.8% likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content
Keyframe 2 on WasItAI:
Result: This image or a significant part of it was created by AI.
The viral visuals claiming to show the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir are AI-generated.
Our sources
Hive Moderation
WasItAI
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