After Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi concluded a two-day visit to Israel in February 2026, a manipulated video circulated on social media with a false claim it showed Defence Minister Rajnath Singh saying Modi had “cautioned” Iran that its hostile actions against Israel would have “serious consequences”. The video is manipulated from an actual clip of the minister posted months earlier, dubbed with a fabricated audio track.
“Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is expressing support for Israel’s attack against Iran,” reads an English-language Facebook post on March 3 alongside a video featuring him.
It appears to show Singh saying in English: “The strike on Iran, following Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Israel, highlights India’s alignment with its strategic partner and underscores the calculated nature of the oppressor.”
He goes on to say that Modi “cautioned Tehran that continued hostile actions will have serious consequences for regional peace and stability, while reiterating India’s support for Israel’s security and right to defend itself”.
The false Facebook post says the video — which carries the logo of Indian news agency ANI on the top right corner — shows it is “very clear that India is in favour of killing Muslims” (archived link).
Screenshot of the false Facebook post taken on March 4, 2026, with a red X added by AFP
The claim surfaced after Modi’s two-day visit to Israel, where he pledged that the two countries would fight terrorism “shoulder to shoulder” in a February 26 speech (archived link).
Two days later, a US-Israeli joint operation killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran has then retaliated with drones and missile attacks on Israel and other Gulf states (archived link).
Modi said on March 2 that he had spoken with his Israeli counterpart and urged an “early” end to the conflict (archived link).
Similar posts with the footage of the defence minister circulated elsewhere on Facebook and X.
But the video’s audio track is fabricated, and the real footage predates the start of the war in Iran.
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes, along with a keyword search, found a clip posted on ANI’s X account on November 23, 2025 showing Singh in the same outfit (archived link).
His speech — made in Hindi — was about Pakistan’s Sindh province and how “civilisationally, Sindh will always be a part of India”, and made no mention of Iran and Israel.
Screenshot comparison of the false Facebook post (left) and the original video posted by ANI on X
A longer clip was posted on the minister’s YouTube channel (archived link).
AFP extracted the audio from the false Facebook post and analysed it with an audio-detection tool in The Verification Plugin, also known as InVID-WeVerify. The result indicates a 60 percent likelihood that the audio was created with AI (archived link).
Screenshot of the Hiya analysis result taken on March 4, 2026
The Indian government said in a March 3 statement that the video is “digitally manipulated” and that the minister has not made the remarks (archived here and here).
AFP has debunked a wave of misinformation related to the conflict in Iran.