Fact Check: Navy chief blames govt’s restraint for losses in Operation Sindoor? No, video is AI-manipulated

Hyderabad: Since Operation Sindoor in May 2025, launched in response to a Pahalgam terrorist attack, Pakistan’s disinformation campaign claiming losses to the Indian Air Force in destroyed fighter jets and personnel continues.

Against this backdrop, a video of the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi, has been circulating on social media, claiming he blamed the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government for not permitting the military to inflict damage due to political reasons, resulting in heavy losses for the Indian Air Force.

An X user shared the video with the caption, “Indian Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Dinesh Kumar Tripathi blames the Modi Government for not giving them permission to inflict any damage due to political reasons, which resulted in heavy losses for the Indian Air Force.”

In the video, Admiral Tripathi can allegedly be heard saying, “Sir, a few days ago, on the deck of the Indian Navy, you had said that Operation Sindoor has still not finished. If required, next time, the opening will be done by the Navy. We wanted the government to permit us to fight, but the government did not allow us to fight. This is why the Indian Air Force suffered losses.”

A similar claim can be found here.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false, as the video had been manipulated.

Upon listening to the audio minutely, we found a sudden change in Tripathi’s voice and tone in the segment where he allegedly says, “We wanted the government to permit us to fight, but the government did not allow us to fight. This is why the Indian Air Force suffered losses.”

This gave us the cue that the video had been manipulated.

The viral clip carried The Print’s logo, so we searched for the video on the media outlet’s YouTube channel using relevant keywords and found a longer version published on August 26, titled ‘Frigates like Udaygiri & Himgiri, make us more capable of giving opening knock-out punch to enemy.’

The video shows Admiral Tripathi speaking during the commissioning of two new frigates, INS Udaygiri and INS Himgiri, in the presence of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and other dignitaries.

The viral clip appears at the 4:15-minute timestamp and ends at the 4:31 timestamp.

In that duration, he can be heard saying, “Sir, a few days ago, on the deck of the Indian Navy, you had said that Operation Sindoor has still not finished. If required, next time, the opening will be done by the Navy.”

After a brief pause, he starts speaking at the 4:35-minute mark, stating, “Today I would like to say that modern and state-of-the-art platforms like Udaygiri and Himgiri make us more capable of giving an opening knock-out punch to the enemy. On this occasion, I would like to remember the words of PM Narendra Modi. He said that the basic principle of security is that you have unique and customised systems. Uniqueness and surprise elements can be there only when equipment is manufactured in your own country…”

We did not find him blaming the government for restraining the armed forces from inflicting damage on Pakistan or admitting to Air Force losses during Operation Sindoor.

Rather, we found him saying that during the operation, the Indian Navy successfully deterred Pakistan and forced them to request India to stop kinetic action. This confirms that the viral clip has been manipulated.

Result from the detection tool

We ran the audio through Deepfake-O-Meter to check its authenticity.

Out of six detectors, two found that the audio is likely AI-generated with a 100 per cent score, two gave a score of over 99 per cent, and the other detectors returned inconclusive results.

Therefore, we conclude that the video has been manipulated using AI.