A video of Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is viral on social media with a false claim that he is threatening students to end protests.
DFRAC found the viral video to be misleading in its investigation. In fact, Rajnath Singh did not make any such statement. The investigation revealed that his original video was edited and a different audio was added to it.
On the social media site X (formerly Twitter), a verified user named “The Whistle Blower” shared a viral video and wrote, “Breaking: India’s Home Minister has warned Gen Z students, ‘If those students do not stop the protests, no matter what the cost, the full power of the government will be used, and this protest will be crushed.’”
Apart from this, many other users have also shared the viral video with a similar claim, which can be seen here.
Fact Check:
To verify the claim made alongside the viral video, DFRAC converted the viral video into keyframes and performed a reverse search. During this process, we found a similar video on X (formerly Twitter). On July 22, 2026, DD News shared the video from its official handle, writing: “#WATCH | Defense Minister @rajnathsingh accused the opposition of politicizing the issue of students and youth regarding the NEET issue, stating that the government is committed to their welfare. The Defense Minister remarked that instead of raising issues through parliamentary debate, the opposition is creating ‘artificial’ anger. He appealed to the opposition to allow discussions to happen in Parliament instead of protesting on the streets. #MonsoonSession #ParliamentMonsoonSession #NEETIssue”.
Apart from this, we found another similar video shared on X (formerly Twitter) from the handle of the news agency ANI. Shared on July 22, 2026, this video was captioned: “#WATCH | Delhi: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said, ‘…It is very unfortunate that some people are trying to use the students and youth of our country for their political motives. Under the leadership of PM Modi, our government is committed to fulfilling the expectations of students and youth and for their welfare… I am confident that the wise youth of India understand all such attempts and they will choose the path of development and nation-building. We are also committed to ensuring that no injustice is done to anyone, especially to our youth and students. Some opposition leaders are creating artificial anger among the people. I believe this is a failed attempt to mislead students. We are sensitive towards the youth. The Monsoon Session is underway and the government has maintained that it is ready to discuss all issues. But instead of Parliament, the opposition is wrongly trying to find solutions on the streets… If the opposition is serious, they should not create a ruckus in the session, but should discuss the issues there.’”
“In such a situation, we also checked the viral video using the AI tool Detect Video AI. During this, it was found that there are signs of AI tampering in the viral video. Many forensic signs are increased in the video, and there is a 60% chance of AI tampering in the video.”
In addition, we analyzed the viral video using another AI tool, Hive Detect. During this analysis, it was revealed that there is a 98.1% probability of the speech in the viral video being AI-generated.
In this regard, we spoke with IT expert Mayank Sharma. Regarding the viral video, he explained that the video has been edited and tampered with. He further added that a separate audio track has been overlaid onto the video.
Conclusion:
DFRAC’s fact-check establishes that the claim accompanying the viral video is misleading. Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh did not make the statement attributed to him. The viral video has been edited, and AI-generated audio has been overlaid onto the original footage.
| Claim Review | Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh threatened students to end the protest |
| Claimed By | X user The Whistle Blower |
| Fact Check | Misleading |
Our Sources
- X Post by DD News, Posted on 22 July 2026.
- X Post by ANI, Posted on 22 July 2026.
- Technical analysis by IT expert Mayank Sharma shared with DFRAC.
- Detect Video AI forensic analysis of the viral video.
- Hive AI Detector analysis of the viral video’s audio.
