A video of External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar is going viral on social media (here, here, and here), where he is allegedly heard saying, “Pakistan did attack us massively that night. We had already lost three Rafale jets to Pakistan two days ago, so it was very unfair of them to attack. They did it anyway. We responded quickly, and the next morning, Mr Rubio (United States Secretary of State) called me and said the Pakistanis are ready to talk.” Let’s verify the truth behind the video in this article.
Claim: The video shows External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar saying that India lost three Rafale jets to Pakistan.
Fact: The viral clip is edited. In the original interview with Newsweek on 01 July 2024, Jaishankar said, “Pakistan did attack us massively that night… Mr. Rubio (United States Secretary of State) called me up and said that Pakistan is ready to talk.” However, the line about losing three Rafale jets was not part of the original video and It was digitally added. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
After closely reviewing the viral audio multiple times, we noticed that the voice saying, “we had already lost three Rafales to Pakistan two days ago…” did not match External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s original voice. The clip clearly features two different voices, and there was also a mismatch in Jaishankar’s lip-sync, indicating possible manipulation.
We then performed a reverse image search using key frames from the video, which led us to the original interview published by Newsweek on 01 July 2024. In this extended interview (archived), Jaishankar spoke with Newsweek CEO Dev Pragad about India’s foreign policy, key global relationships, and strategic concerns, including those involving the US, Donald Trump, China, and Pakistan.
We reviewed the full video frame by frame and tried to match the gestures and facial expressions. At the 43:05-minute timestamp, Jaishankar can be clearly heard saying, “Pakistan did attack us massively that night. We responded very quickly after that, and the next morning, Mr. Rubio (United States Secretary of State) called me up and said that Pakistan is ready to talk.” This confirms that the line about losing three Rafale jets was digitally added to the viral clip and is not part of the original interview.
To sum up, this viral video of S. Jaishankar saying that India lost three Rafale jets to Pakistan is edited.
