A video (here, here and here) is going viral on social media claiming to show Union Home Minister Amit Shah being attacked by a monkey as he exits a building surrounded by officials. The video is being shared as if it is a real incident. Let’s find out the truth behind this viral clip.
Claim: The viral video shows a monkey jumping on Union Home Minister Amit Shah as he exits a building surrounded by officials.
Fact: This is a AI-generated video. It was digitally altered using visuals from 2019 when Amit Shah visited the Home Ministry. No such incident of a monkey attacking Amit Shah occurred. Hence the claim is FALSE.
To find the truth, a keyword search was conducted on Google to check if there were any reports of Amit Shah being attacked by a monkey, but no such reports were found. On closely examining the viral video, several inconsistencies were noticed. For instance, in one frame, a police officer’s hand disappears, and the movement of the crowd during the monkey’s jump looks unnatural and odd. These signs, commonly associated with deepfake or AI-generated content (here and here), suggest that the video could be digitally manipulated.
To check if the video was a deepfake, a reverse image search was done using its first frame. This led to media reports, including one from The Indian Express (archived), which had published the same image on 01 June 2019. A comparison between the first frame of the viral video and the image in those reports confirms they are from the same event.
This and other related photos from the incident were reported by multiple media outlets (here, here, here and here). According to them, it was taken on 01 June 2019, when Amit Shah officially took charge as the Union Home Minister. On that day, he held several meetings with governors, junior ministers, and BJP leaders. He was also briefed on the security situation in Jammu & Kashmir and the preparations for the Amarnath Yatra. Senior officials gave him an overview of the Home Ministry’s functions and upcoming challenges.
To further verify whether the video was a deepfake, it was analysed using DeepFake-o-meter, a tool known for detecting AI-generated content. The results confirmed that the video is AI-generated. It appears to have been created using a real photo or video from 2019, when Amit Shah visited the Home Ministry with officials. There was no monkey in the original footage, confirming that the viral video is AI-generated.
To sum up, this video of a monkey jumping on Union Minister Amit Shah is an AI-generated video.
