#FactCheck- Viral AI Video Falsely Claims to Show Newborn Babies Being Rescued During Assam Floods

Introduction
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Generative AI, particularly deepfake technology, poses significant risks to security in the financial sector. Deepfake technology can convincingly mimic voices, create lip-sync videos, execute face swaps, and carry out other types of impersonation through tools like DALL-E, Midjourney, Respeecher, Murf, etc, which are now widely accessible and have been misused for fraud. For example, in 2024, cybercriminals in Hong Kong used deepfake technology to impersonate the Chief Financial Officer of a company, defrauding it of $25 million. Surveys, including Regula’s Deepfake Trends 2024 and Sumsub reports, highlight financial services as the most targeted sector for deepfake-induced fraud.

Deepfake Technology and Its Risks to Financial Systems

India’s financial ecosystem, including banks, NBFCs, and fintech companies, is leveraging technology to enhance access to credit for households and MSMEs. The country is a leader in global real-time payments and its digital economy comprises 10% of its GDP.  However, it faces unique cybersecurity challenges. According to the RBI’s 2023-24 Currency and Finance report, banks cite cybersecurity threats, legacy systems, and low customer digital literacy as major hurdles in digital adoption. Deepfake technology intensifies risks like:

• Social Engineering Attacks: Information security breaches through phishing, vishing, etc. become more convincing with deepfake imagery and audio.
• Bypassing Authentication Protocols: Deepfake audio or images may circumvent voice and image-based authentication systems, exposing sensitive data.
• Market Manipulation: Misleading deepfake content making false claims and endorsements can harm investor trust and damage stock market performance.
• Business Email Compromise Scams: Deepfake audio can mimic the voice of a real person with authority in the organization to falsely authorize payments.
• Evolving Deception Techniques: The usage of AI will allow cybercriminals to deploy malware that can adapt in real-time to carry out phishing attacks and inundate targets with increased speed and variations. Legacy security frameworks are not suited to countering automated attacks at such a scale.

Existing Frameworks and Gaps

In 2016, the RBI introduced cybersecurity guidelines for banks, neo-banking, lending, and non-banking financial institutions, focusing on resilience measures like Board-level policies, baseline security standards, data leak prevention, running penetration tests, and mandating Cybersecurity Operations Centres (C-SOCs). It also mandated incident reporting to the RBI for cyber events. Similarly, SEBI’s Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience Framework (CSCRF) applies to regulated entities (REs) like stock brokers, mutual funds, KYC agencies, etc., requiring policies, risk management frameworks, and third-party assessments of cyber resilience measures. While both frameworks are comprehensive, they require updates addressing emerging threats from generative AI-driven cyber fraud.

Cyberpeace Recommendations 

• AI Cybersecurity to Counter AI Cybercrime: AI-generated attacks can be designed to overwhelm with their speed and scale. Cybercriminals increasingly exploit platforms like LinkedIn, Microsoft Teams, and Messenger, to target people.  More and more organizations of all sizes will have to use AI-based cybersecurity for detection and response since generative AI is becoming increasingly essential in combating hackers and breaches.
• Enhancing Multi-factor Authentication (MFA):  With improving image and voice-generation/manipulation technologies, enhanced authentication measures such as token-based authentication or other hardware-based measures, abnormal behaviour detection, multi-device push notifications, geolocation verifications, etc. can be used to improve prevention strategies.  New targeted technological solutions for content-driven authentication can also be implemented.
• Addressing Third-Party Vulnerabilities: Financial institutions often outsource operations to vendors that may not follow the same cybersecurity protocols, which can introduce vulnerabilities. Ensuring all parties follow standardized protocols can address these gaps.
• Protecting Senior Professionals: Senior-level and high-profile individuals at organizations are at a greater risk of being imitated or impersonated since they hold higher authority over decision-making and have greater access  to sensitive information. Protecting their identity metrics through technological interventions is of utmost importance.
• Advanced Employee Training:  To build organizational resilience, employees must be trained to understand how generative and emerging technologies work. A well-trained workforce can significantly lower the likelihood of successful human-focused human-focused cyberattacks like phishing and impersonation.
• Financial Support to Smaller Institutions: Smaller institutions may not have the resources to invest in robust long-term cybersecurity solutions and upgrades. They require financial and technological support from the government to meet requisite standards.

Conclusion

According to The India Cyber Threat Report 2025 by the Data Security Council of India (DSCI) and Seqrite, deepfake-enabled cyberattacks, especially in the finance and healthcare sectors, are set to increase in 2025. This has the potential to disrupt services, steal sensitive data, and exploit geopolitical tensions, presenting a significant risk to the critical infrastructure of India. 

As the threat landscape changes,  institutions will have to continue to embrace AI and Machine Learning (ML) for threat detection and response. The financial sector must prioritize robust cybersecurity strategies, participate in regulation-framing procedures, adopt AI-based solutions, and enhance workforce training, to safeguard against AI-enabled fraud. Collaborative efforts among policymakers, financial institutions, and technology providers will be essential to strengthen defenses.

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Sources 

• https://sumsub.com/newsroom/deepfake-cases-surge-in-countries-holding-2024-elections-sumsub-research-shows/ 
• https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/10/31/2972565/0/en/Deepfake-Fraud-Costs-the-Financial-Sector-an-Average-of-600-000-for-Each-Company-Regula-s-Survey-Shows.html 
• https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/2023-05/For%20Publication_BOfA_PollardCartier.pdf 
• https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/04/asia/deepfake-cfo-scam-hong-kong-intl-hnk/index.html 
• https://www.rbi.org.in/Commonman/English/scripts/Notification.aspx?Id=1721 
• https://elplaw.in/leadership/cybersecurity-and-cyber-resilience-framework-for-sebi-regulated-entities/ 
• https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/artificial-intelligence/ai-driven-deepfake-enabled-cyberattacks-to-rise-in-2025-healthcarefinance-sectors-at-risk-report/articleshow/115976846.cms?from=mdr 

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Introduction
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In June 2026, the Government of India temporarily restricted access to Telegram amid concerns that the platform had been used to facilitate examination related malpractice, including the alleged circulation of leaked question papers during the NEET UG re examination. The move reignited a familiar debate about the responsibility of digital platforms for unlawful activities carried out through them.

Critics of such restrictions raise a fundamental question: if a traffic accident occurs on a road, do we shut down the road? If theft takes place inside a shopping mall, do we close the entire mall? By the same logic, is it reasonable to block a communication platform because some individuals misuse it? These questions lie at the heart of a broader conflict between state interests in maintaining public order and the protection of digital rights, privacy, and freedom of communication in an increasingly interconnected world.

The controversy surrounding Telegram therefore extends beyond a single examination or messaging application. It raises a deeper and more pressing question: who should bear responsibility for illegal acts committed through encrypted digital platforms, and where should the law draw the line between effective enforcement and the preservation of fundamental digital freedoms?

Beyond mere communication for millions of students in India, Telegram is a classroom in the digital sense, an archive for their notes, practice papers, lecture recordings, and community groups that hundreds of millions of candidates refer to every single day. Therefore, why on a routine day in June 2026 did the messaging app top every other channel? Temporary internet restriction on the platform had become necessary to stop examination-related malpractice like leakage of question papers and was temporarily suspended, with reports suggesting that this move by the government was on the occasion of the NEET-UG re-examination.

This ban once again brings up a bigger question that cannot be contained within one particular examination. When has it become okay to hold a communication platform responsible and accountable for illegal acts committed over it? Or are the perpetrators solely to blame, and the service can be prohibited? Ultimately, where is the line drawn between public interest, law enforcement, and digital rights and privacy? 

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End-to-End Encryption: Architecture and Benefits
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At the heart of these discussions of Telegram and other apps lies a technology referred to as "end-to-end encryption" or "E2EE." Quite literally, it means a message is locked with cryptography on the sender's device and can only be unlocked by the intended recipient. Not even the tech platform running the communication app can decipher it for everyone else; it just looks like random gibberish.

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The Process
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This kind of modern communication relies on public key cryptography. Each person has a public key they can share with anyone and a private key that stays only on their devices. When they send you a message, it is scrambled with crypto that can be unlocked by only your private key. WhatsApp and Signal, for example, use the Signal Protocol, which features "perfect forward secrecy" and is designed to protect communications from ever being unlocked even if one key is compromised. Telegram's approach is a bit unique. By default, Telegram messages aren't encrypted with end-to-end crypto; this only comes via an optional feature called "Secret Chats," a key difference in the regulatory debate.

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The Dark Side: Crime, Misuse, and the Moderation Dilemma

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The very features that make end-to-end messaging popular among everyday people are privacy, speed, anonymity, and mass reach which also make end-to-end messaging popular among criminals. That, unfortunately, is the catch for policymakers globally: The technology designed to protect innocent users is also the technology that facilitates criminal activity.

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3.1 Criminal Abuse

Telegram, in particular, has frequently come under fire for its role in hosting a spectrum of criminal activities, most notably in the recent controversy in India regarding NEET-UG 2026 examination papers where channels allegedly advertised leaked question papers for enormous sums, convincing desperate candidates. In these instances, messages could be altered or deleted using Telegram’s message editing feature, fabricating evidence of prior leaks. However, this extends to illicit marketplaces, drug trafficking, financial fraud, money laundering, and distributing other prohibited content. Telegram's usage in disseminating extremist propaganda and aiding criminal organizations is also frequently cited, leading to bans or restrictions in countries ranging from Brazil to Nepal to Somalia to Vietnam.

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3.2 The Moderation Dilemma

But the difficulty is not just with misuse; it’s also about effective moderation. Moderation, however, requires content transparency. Strong encryption is built to obscure just that. Many end-to-end messaging services like Signal and WhatsApp emphasize that even if they wanted to, they would have been able to decipher the content of a user’s message due to their architecture. Telegram has been in scrutiny for years due to its limited cooperation with law enforcement agencies because its default chats are not completely end-to-end encrypted, though there has been an attempt by Pavel Durov, the platform’s founder, to increase cooperation following his 2024 arrest in France.

This gives policymakers the following challenge: How can governments require increased access to fight crime without forcing tech companies to weaken security for everyone? As cryptographers point out, a specific "backdoor" intended to allow access to law enforcement officials can be easily exploited by hackers, foreign governments, and any other actor with nefarious intent.

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Comparison of Regulatory Approaches Worldwide

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4.1 Authoritarian Countries' Responses

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China, for instance, has had the app blocked as part of its strategy to control access to the internet since 2015, and Iran did so in 2018 when the app was used to help organize protests against the government. An infamous Russian bid to block Telegram in 2018 turned into a cautionary story. Trying to censor the service disrupted the IPs of millions of computers, including significant services like those run by Amazon and Google. The move was met by a surge of users turning to VPNs to get access. It’s an expensive, disruptive, and incomplete form of censorship.

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4.2 Democratic Countries' Approaches

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Democratic jurisdictions generally prefer targeted interventions. Telegram was suspended in Brazil in 2022 and 2023, though again, only in response to a judge’s order in relation to particular investigations, and was lifted when it came into compliance. The EU’s approach has been to build on an established approach of regulation by use of a broader legislative framework, including the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, aimed at platform liability rather than outlawing encryption outright.

 Meanwhile, the proposed scanning of encrypted communications has run into strong judicial headwinds, with the European courts stressing the danger of backdoors to privacy.

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4.3 The United Kingdom Approach

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The UK offers a middle way. With its Investigatory Powers Act, the government can oblige tech companies to collaborate in legitimate investigations. But this came to a head earlier this year with the case of Apple and the government's attempts to force it to unlock encrypted iCloud backups. Apple not only refused to reduce its encryption but also decided instead to disable some of its features for British users. This has created a problem for democracies across the world: how to balance access for investigators against the need to maintain the security that makes our systems safer.

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Judicial and Legislative Perspectives: India and Beyond

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In the Indian context, to have a perspective about the legal frameworks concerning content moderation, let’s explore some of the foundational decisions from the Supreme Court. Three decisions have laid the building block for digital rights laws: the first being Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015), where Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000, was upheld, but only by laying rigorous conditions on the review process and chance of challenging the said decision. Another important decision in this sphere is Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017) which stated that the right to privacy is fundamental in nature under Article 21 of the Constitution and stipulated the constitutional requirements of legality, legitimacy, and proportionality against the state’s interventions in fundamental rights. The most recent important case law to consider, in this context, would be Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (2020) which set certain limitations, such as any internet shut-downs or orders have to be temporary, proportional, and have scope for appeal. Further, the Supreme Court demanded transparency around any and all orders of blocking.

These principles of proportionality and legal limitations are highly pertinent to the Telegram issue, especially since Section 69A confers powers to block information in case of concerns about public order, national security, etc., but activists often cite this power to target specific content rather than entire platforms like Telegram. The ban on Telegram in June 2026 and disabling of message editing will force authorities to justify not only their statutory authority but also the need for proportionate means.

These aspects are amplified by IT Rules, 2021, which mandate that some instant messaging platforms may require identification of the ‘first originator’ of messages, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, to protect digital personal data by ensuring it does not undermine national security exceptions to this end. 

Moreover, the use of encryption to ensure secure and private communications is becoming an important point of legal discourse globally. Recently, the European Court of Human Rights in Podchasov v. Russia (2024) held that mandating decryption on devices as a tool of investigative power constituted a disproportionate interference with an individual's right to privacy implying that while states may indeed have authority to regulate communication and digital services, any such measures limiting the scope of encryption will have to meet strict requirements of legality, necessity, and proportionality to be legally justifiable.

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Constitutional Validity of the Ban

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The government's case for a constitutional ban on Telegram rests upon its ability to satisfy the proportionality framework established by Puttaswamy and Anuradha Bhasin.

1. Legitimate aim:  The state's strong suit. This is the government's best argument. Protection of the integrity of NEET-UG, a high-stakes test with close to 2.4 million students, can indeed be a legitimate state objective. Given that there is evidence of channels that allegedly were involved in selling leaked question papers, the action is presumably justifiable under section 69A for preventing the incitement or occurrence of public disorder or preventing cognizable offenses.
2. Necessity: The National Testing Agency (NTA) itself admitted that localized removal of suspicious accounts on Telegram had already mitigated the risks, while Telegram insisted that it had independently taken down numerous channels. The fact that the block affected more than 150 million users in India, where the medium is widely used for personal communication and is also utilized on other platforms like WhatsApp, Discord, and Instagram to a similar or higher extent, raises the responsibility to justify a strict platform-wide ban. Moreover, there is a significant legal question regarding the state’s authority under section 69A to direct Telegram to disable its message-editing capability.
3. Proportionality and process: The block, even though it was temporary and intended to ensure fairness in the examination system, severely undermined legitimate uses of the platform by students who used it to share educational materials and organize study groups. Moreover, the opaqueness around the section 69A order is itself hard to reconcile with the transparency requirements set out in Anuradha Bhasin. 

Thus, while the objectives of preventing exam fraud may be legitimate, the necessity and proportionality of single platform-wide bans remain highly suspect under Indian constitutional law.

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Policy Recommendations and the Path Forward

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The Telegram controversy points to the need for a better balancing act in platform governance in India. Firstly, instead of blanket platform shutdowns, action should target specific channels, bots, or URLs, as may be the case. Secondly, any attempt to dictate changes to features, such as disabling message editing, should be based on specific statutory provisions, not an expansive reading of Section 69A. Furthermore, there is a dire need for increased transparency; blocking orders must state the justification for the order, what is being blocked, and for how long, as far as possible. In the long run, stricter cross-border cooperation via streamlined MLATs, or through the appointment of local legal representatives by foreign platforms, would facilitate easier enforcement. Ultimately, all major blocking decisions must be accompanied by proportionality assessments. Lastly, India must resist pressure to provide access to encryption backdoors; while this might ease investigative burdens, doing so would severely jeopardise the cybersecurity of India, its businesses, and citizens.

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Conclusion

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The Telegram ban is an example of the tricky equilibrium between protection of public interest and protection of digital liberties in our hyper-connected world. While the intent to counter exam fraud is justifiable, a blanket ban on any platform has much broader implications on questions of necessity, proportionality and transparency. India has a well-developed constitutional and legal framework to deal with this issue already, and the challenge will be to see if those powers are used appropriately.

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References

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Cases:

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• Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) 5 SCC 1 — Supreme Court of India
• Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017) 10 SCC 1 — Supreme Court of India (Nine-Judge Bench)
• Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (2020) 3 SCC 637 — Supreme Court of India
• Podchasov v. Russia, European Court of Human Rights (Application No. 33696/19, February 2024)
• Apple Inc. v. United States (In re Search of an Apple iPhone, C.D. Cal. 2016)
• Telegram Messenger Inc. v. Union of India & Anr., Delhi High Court (June 2026) — Sub judice

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Legislation & Rules:

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• Information Technology Act, 2000 (India) — Sections 69A, 79
• IT (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking Access to Information by Public) Rules, 2009
• IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021
• Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (India) & DPDP Rules, 2025
• EU Digital Services Act, 2022 (Regulation 2022/2065)
• EU Digital Markets Act, 2022 (Regulation 2022/1925)
• EU Child Sexual Abuse Regulation (CSAR) Proposal — In Trilogue, June 2026
• UK Investigatory Powers Act, 2016

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Policy Sources:

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• Internet Freedom Foundation, Statement on Telegram Block, 16 June 2026
•  European Commission, ProtectEU Security Strategy, June 2025
•  MeitY Section 69A Blocking Order re: Telegram (June 2026)
•  NTA Press Release on NEET-UG 2026 Re-Examination, 16 June 2026

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Executive Summary

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A claim is being widely circulated on social media alleging that more than 20,000 Sikh and Muslim personnel have resigned from the Indian Army.The viral graphic further attributes a statement to Chief of Army Staff General Upendra Dwivedi, claiming that the resignations were triggered by Indian media allegedly blaming Muslims and Sikhs for the Delhi riots.  The graphic also includes the alleged remark that “Bhagwakaran (saffronisation) has destroyed us.” Several social media users are sharing the claim as genuine. CyberPeace Rresearch Wing ’s research found the viral claim to be false. Our research  revealed that there is no credible evidence to support the allegation that more than 20,000 Sikh and Muslim soldiers resigned from the Indian Army. We found no official statement from the Indian Army or the Ministry of Defence confirming such resignations. Additionally, the statement attributed to Chief of Army Staff General Upendra Dwivedi has been fabricated and does not appear in his original speech. The viral claim is therefore misleading and based on false information.

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Claim

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An X user shared the viral graphic with the caption, “Under the guise of ‘Bhagwakaran’ (saffronisation), RSS has wanted a Hindu Rashtra for 100 years. Since 2014, the process of ‘Hindu purification’ has begun. Agniveer recruitment is being filled with RSS-BJP supporters. Twenty thousand Sikh and Muslim soldiers have resigned from the Indian Army, creating job opportunities for RSS and BJP supporters.”

Post Link:

https://x.com/RatnakarGedam/status/2078659496801661426?s=20 

https://archive.ph/submit/?url 

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Fact Check

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To verify the claim, we conducted keyword-based searches on Google using terms related to the alleged resignation of 20,000 Sikh and Muslim soldiers from the Indian Army. Our search found no credible news reports supporting the claim. We also found no official statement from the Indian Army or the Ministry of Defence confirming that such resignations had taken place. During the research , we located the original video of General Upendra Dwivedi, published by the news agency IANS. In the video, the Army Chief is addressing the Delhi Defence Dialogue, where he discusses modern warfare, emerging military technologies, future security challenges, and land warfare strategy.

His remarks are entirely focused on defence preparedness, technological advancements, and strategic military issues. At no point does he mention the resignation of 20,000 Sikh or Muslim soldiers, the Delhi riots, or any of the claims circulating on social media.

https://x.com/ians_india/status/1988566879053693282?s=20

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The viral quote attributed to General Dwivedi does not appear anywhere in his speech and has been fabricated.

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Conclusion

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Our research  found that the claim alleging 20,000 Sikh and Muslim soldiers resigned from the Indian Army is false.There is no credible evidence that such mass resignations took place, and General Upendra Dwivedi never made the statement attributed to him in the viral posts. The claim is based on a fabricated quote and is being circulated to mislead the public.

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