Pakistan-based account shares AI-manipulated video falsely linking Army Chief Dhiraj Seth to Major’s wife
A viral video claims to show Army Chief Dhiraj Seth dancing and flirting with an Army Major’s wife, Supreet Sapra, in what appears to be a news report.
The claim is false. A fact-check found that the video was created by manipulating an original wedding dance video with AI, while the image of Supreet Sapra used in the clip was also taken from a genuine social media post.
A video circulating on social media appears to carry a CNN-style headline claiming that Indian Army Chief Dhiraj Seth was “spotted dancing” with Major’s wife Supreet Sapra.
The footage shows a man and a woman dancing with drinks in their hands. An image showing a woman in a saree standing beside a uniformed man also appears in one corner of the video.
The video was shared by an X account with the claim that Seth was “flirting” with the Army Major’s wife.
A search of CNN’s website found no report matching the claim or the video.
The absence of any such report, combined with inconsistencies visible in the footage, raised questions about its authenticity.
A detailed analysis of the video found several signs of digital manipulation.
The faces of the man and woman appear blurred and distorted in several frames.
Their smiles remain unnaturally frozen during parts of the video, while some of their hand movements appear distorted or glitchy.
An analysis using Meta AI also indicated that the footage had been created or edited using artificial intelligence.
These inconsistencies suggest that the people shown dancing were digitally altered.
A reverse-image search of keyframes led to an Instagram video posted by user @rhythiculous on March 11.
The original and viral videos have the same background and feature two people performing similar dance movements. However, the people’s faces and clothing are different in the viral version.
The Instagram user told NewsMeter that the original video showed her friend and her dancing at a wedding.
This indicates that the original dance footage was used as a source for creating the manipulated video.
The image of the woman shown in the viral video was also traced to an earlier Instagram post.
The uncropped image was posted on February 23 by an Instagram account belonging to Supreet Sapra.
Sapra confirmed that the account belonged to her but denied the claim that she was the wife of an Indian Army Major.
She told NewsMeter that her husband had retired four years earlier and that she did not know the new Army Chief.
She also said the woman shown dancing in the viral footage was AI-generated.
The video was initially amplified by social media accounts that have been identified in previous fact-check reports as being associated with Pakistan-based or South Asia-based misinformation networks.
One of the accounts sharing the video, @ThokaReturns, has a profile name similar to another account previously identified by NewsMeter as being involved in spreading misinformation.
However, the key finding does not depend on the account’s origin: the video itself is digitally manipulated.
Fact Check verdict: False
The viral video does not show Army Chief Dhiraj Seth dancing or flirting with an Army Major’s wife. The footage was created by digitally manipulating an original wedding dance video, while a genuine photograph of Supreet Sapra was separately used to support the false claim.
