NSA Doval Claims Deepfake After Video of His 2014 Speech Goes Viral
A 35-second video of India's National Security Adviser Ajit Doval stating that ISI recruited more Hindus than Muslims for intelligence tasks went viral on November 17, 2025, following a terror attack in New Delhi. Doval claimed the video was a deepfake created to manipulate public opinion, but fact-checkers traced it to a 2014 lecture where he made the same statement, confirming the video was authentic.
What happened
A 35-second video of NSA Ajit Doval saying that 'more Hindus than Muslims have been recruited for ISI tasks in India' went viral on November 17, 2025, shortly after a terrorist attack in New Delhi on November 10. The clip was widely shared to counter blaming of minorities following the attack.
NSA Doval claimed the video was a 'deepfake' in a statement to CNN-News18 on November 17, saying he never made such a statement and that the video was created to manipulate public opinion and distort India's counter-terrorism narrative.
Reported impact
Doval said such media tools are often used to distort issues related to national security, and that the circulating clips represent an attempt to target India's counter-terrorism narrative.
Index analysis
Alt News conducted a reverse image search of keyframes and found the viral clip was extracted from a 1-hour 17-minute YouTube video uploaded by the Australia India Institute on March 20, 2014. At the 1:04:00 mark of the video, Doval made the same statement, saying ISI had recruited more Hindus than Muslims, with more than 4,000 cases from 1947 of which less than 20 percent were Muslims.
Governance controls
Alt News verified the video by tracing it to a 2014 lecture, finding the statement was not AI-generated or deepfaked but an authentic recording of Doval's remarks from a Global Challenges Series lecture hosted by the Australia India Institute on March 11, 2014.
Classification
Sources and evidence
Sources not yet published
This record was researched and written by the Index from original reporting. Its sources are still being verified by an editor, and they are listed here once that check is complete. Until then the record carries no reviewer.