This viral video claiming Colonel Sofiya Qureshi called the tri-service Trishul exercise a political gimmick ahead of the 2025 Bihar elections is fake
The Indian Navy will lead a joint “Trishul” tri-services exercise with the Indian Army and Indian Air Force in early November 2025. The drills will take place across parts of Rajasthan, Gujarat, and the northern Arabian Sea, and will include large-scale land, sea, and air operations. The aim is to improve coordination, joint planning, and network integration between the forces, while also practising intelligence, surveillance, electronic, and cyber warfare. The exercise will use Indian-made systems and focus on handling new-age threats, highlighting the armed forces’ readiness and joint operational strength.
Amid this, a video going viral on social media (here, here) claims to show Indian Army officer Colonel Sofiya Qureshi alleging that soldiers are being used as political props to divide citizens, criticising what she calls the “saffronisation” of the force and describing the Trishul tri-services exercise as political theatre ahead of the 2025 Bihar elections.
In the video, Colonel Qureshi is allegedly heard saying: “Today, I stand here not as a political pawn, but as a soldier of the Indian Army. For two and a half years, I served my country with pride, until I realised we were being used as props to divide our own citizens. The saffronisation of our ranks is a betrayal of every oath we took. Our job is to defend India, not the ideology of the BJP or the RSS. These so-called ‘Trishul’ exercises before the Bihar elections are nothing but theatre to fool the nation. Uniforms are being painted in ideology, not honour. This must stop now. If speaking the truth costs my uniform, so be it. I stand with India, not with hate.” Let’s verify the truth behind the video in this article.
Claim: The video shows Colonel Sofiya Qureshi calling the tri-service Trishul exercise a political gimmick ahead of the 2025 Bihar elections.
Fact: The viral clip is digitally manipulated. Colonel Sofiya Qureshi did not say that the tri-service Trishul exercise is a political gimmick ahead of the 2025 Bihar elections in her original address at the Indian Army’s Chanakya Defence Dialogue. The audio in the viral video was added using AI generated voice and is not part of her speech. Multiple AI voice-analysis checks also indicated that the audio is artificially generated. The Press Information Bureau (PIB) Fact Check has confirmed that the video is fake. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
We conducted a Google search using relevant keywords but found no reports confirming that Colonel Sofiya Qureshi referred to the tri-service Trishul exercise as a political gimmick ahead of the 2025 Bihar elections. Given the significance of such a statement, it would have attracted widespread media coverage, but no credible reports were found.
We then noticed that the viral video carries a logo of the ANI news agency. To verify its source, we checked ANI’s official YouTube channel and found the original video published on 31 October 2025, titled “Sofiya Qureshi’s must-watch message to Gen-Z after Op Sindoor at Indian Army’s Chanakya Defence Dialogue.” The video description stated that it was recorded during Colonel Sofiya Qureshi’s address at the Indian Army’s Chanakya Defence Dialogue on the theme “Veer Yuva: Empowering Youth for India’s National Security”. In her speech, she highlighted the rising role of youth in modern warfare, stressed that both civilians and the military share responsibility in national security, and noted that future conflicts will increasingly involve cyber and digital domains, not just traditional battlefields.
We reviewed the entire speech delivered by Colonel Sofiya Qureshi at the Indian Army’s Chanakya Defence Dialogue and found no instance of her referring to the tri-service Trishul exercise as a political gimmick ahead of the 2025 Bihar elections. This confirms that the viral video has been digitally manipulated. The audio heard in the clip was added separately to visuals from her original speech and is not part of Colonel Sofiya Qureshi’s actual address.
We then analysed the viral video using multiple AI voice detection tools, including Hive AI and Hiya. The results suggested that the audio in the clip is likely AI-generated/deepfake. This confirms that the viral video is fake and digitally altered, with the original visuals being paired with manipulated audio.
Additionally, we found an X post by PIB Fact Check dated 3 November 2025 debunking the viral video. The post stated that Pakistani propaganda accounts are circulating a digitally altered clip of Colonel Sofia Qureshi, falsely claiming that the Trishul exercise is a political gimmick to influence the Bihar elections. PIB clarified that she has not made any such statement and warned that the AI-generated fake video is being shared to mislead people and create distrust against the Indian Armed Forces.
To sum up, this viral video claiming Colonel Sofiya Qureshi called the tri-service Trishul exercise a political gimmick ahead of the 2025 Bihar elections is fake.