Pakistan’s Foreign Minister cites a fake image to claim ‘Pakistani Air Force is best’ in their senate, gets trolled

Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar has praised the country’s air force by quoting a fake image that imitated the front page of the UK-based newspaper The Daily Telegraph.

In his address to Pakistan’s Senate on Thursday, Dar said, “Telegraph writes Pakistan Air Force is the undisputed king of the skies.”

The newspaper page quoted by Dar was a fake page viral on social media.

Pakistan own newspaper The Dawn’s iVerify Pakistan team investigated the content, found discrepancies and declared the image as fake.

Posts from multiple users across social media have been sharing the photo since May 10, allegedly showing the front page of The Daily Telegraph newspaper declaring the Pakistan Air Force the “King of the Skies” amid the recent escalation with India. However, no such article was published in the newspaper and the screenshot is fake, Dawn reported.

The Dawn, conducted a fact-check to determine the veracity of the claim made in the newspaper due to its virality and keen public interest in the international coverage of the recent tensions between Pakistan and India.

While analysing the viral image, the team found multiple discrepancies, including spelling errors, mistyped and jumped sentences and language inconsistencies. Words like “Fyaw…” instead of “Force” and “preformance” instead of “performance” are incorrect, “Aur Force” appears instead of “Air Force” and “advancemend” instead of “advancement” is incorrect. These typographical and spelling mistakes are inconsistent with the editorial standards of a mainstream newspaper, Dawn reported.

The layout of the page was compared to the official version of The Daily Telegraph. The image of the article is fake and no such article has been published by the UK-based publication.

OpIndia had fact-checked the fake image on May 11, as dozens of Pakistanis were sharing it to spread misinformation on social media.

The image, very obviously AI-generated, has multiple spelling and print errors, and any sane person can see that it is a fake. However, the Pakistani Foreign Minister declared it to their parliament as some very sophisticated validation from British media.

Another X user, Abdul Wasey Naik posted, “Many credible journalists in Pakistan shared and quoted this image throughout the day, claiming it to be the front page of The Daily Telegraph with the headline “Pakistan Air Force: The Undisputed King of the Skies.” This picture is AI-generated.”

After India launched Operation Sindoor against Terror targets in Pakistan, the Pakistani side jumped into a misinformation war against India. This showed Pakistan’s desperate attempt to shift the focus with a barrage of lies and digital theatrics.

Pakistan’s state-affiliated accounts also turned to their familiar playbook of recycling outdated images, misrepresenting old videos, and inventing completely fabricated claims to flood the information space with falsehoods so quickly and overwhelmingly that it became difficult to separate fact from fiction.

It is notable here that Pakistan had also claimed to attack and damage the Adampur air base of India, even damaging the S-400 air defence system there. However, PM Modi visited there on Tuesday, interacted with soldiers at the visibly intact and functional air base, and even posed before the undamaged S-400 system to deliver his speech.

(With inputs from ANI)

News