Doval denies making the statement, calling it a "deepfake" aimed at distorting public opinion; a fact-check found the video was uploaded on YouTube and the original lecture was delivered on March 11, 2014, long before deepfake tools became common
NEW DELHI – A video clip of National Security Adviser Ajit Doval has sparked controversy, with Alt News claiming it’s genuine. The 35-second clip shows Doval saying “more Hindus than Muslims have been recruited for ISI tasks in India”. Doval denies making the statement, calling it a “deepfake” aimed at distorting public opinion.
However, Alt News fact-checked the claim and found the video to be real. It traced the clip to a 2014 lecture by Doval at the Australia India Institute, uploaded on YouTube. The original lecture was delivered on March 11, 2014, long before deepfake tools became common.
The clip resurfaced after the November 10 terrorist attack near Delhi’s Red Fort, and was shared to counter communal narratives that emerged following the blast.
Shortly after the clip went viral, Doval told CNN-News18 that the video was a “deepfake” and insisted he had never made such a statement.
He said the clip was likely created to distort public opinion and target India’s counter-terrorism narrative. Other media channels also published a report echoing his claim.
However, Alt News conducted a reverse image search of keyframes from the clip and traced it to a 1 hour 17 minutes lecture uploaded on YouTube by the Australia India Institute in 2014.
At around the 1:04:00 mark of the authentic video, Doval can be heard clearly stating that the number of individuals recruited by Pakistan’s ISI for intelligence tasks in India included “more Hindus than Muslims,” adding that out of more than 4,000 cases since 1947, “probably not even 20 per cent would be Muslims.” The fact-check confirms that these remarks were indeed made by Doval over a decade ago.
Alt News also noted that the viral clip circulating now is a short excerpt from a much longer lecture in which Doval repeatedly warns against viewing terrorism through a communal lens. In his full address, he stressed that national security is not a Hindu versus Muslim issue, and pointed out that Indian Muslims have historically opposed terrorism. He referenced the 2012 Ramleela Maidan gathering where 50,000 Muslim clerics issued a fatwa against global terrorism, and said that casualties of Islamic terrorism globally have overwhelmingly been Muslims themselves. He also noted that top Islamic leaders in India had been on the target list of the Indian Mujahideen.
In the lecture, Doval added that a small violent fringe is often mistaken for the voice of Islam, whereas the majority of Indian Muslims reject violence. He also recalled that Indian Muslims made significant contributions to the freedom movement.
Alt News concluded that the viral video is genuine and not AI-generated, and that NSA Doval’s claim calling it a deepfake is incorrect. The fact-check, while confirming the authenticity of the clip, also points out that selective circulation of a short excerpt strips away the broader context of Doval’s full remarks on terrorism, national security and communal harmony.
