A video of Colonel Sofia Qureshi calling out “saffronisation” in the Indian Army and saying that her job is to defend the country and not be an ideological vessel for the BJP or the RSS has gone viral with social media users claiming she dropped a “political bomb” on live television.
In the video, she is heard criticising the tri-services ‘Trishul’ exercise – a drill scheduled to be held between November 3 and 10, which is meant to enhance joint operational procedures among the armed forces – as a political gimmick ahead of the Bihar elections.
In the viral video (footage below), the army officer is 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 have served my country with pride, until I realized we were being used as props to divide our own citizens. The saffronization of our ranks is a betrayal for every oath we took. Our job is to defend India, not the ideology of BJP or 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 still stand with India, not with hate.”
X user @Baba_Thoka shared the viral video on November 3. At the time of this article being written, the post managed to rack up more than 5 lakh views and was shared more than 1,600 times. (Archive)
X users @InsiderWB, @ConflictWatchX, @Shadowfox_11, @NomanMalik2701 and @78Alph also shared the viral video. (Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Fact Check
A similar video of another armed force officer, Lt Gen Rajiv Ghai, recently went viral and was fact-checked by Alt News. Since that video was fake, we were doubtful of this one’s authenticity as well, owing to the similarities in the viral content.
However, to verify whether Colonel Sofia Qureshi had indeed made such comments at a recent event, we conducted relevant keyword searches to check if any reliable news outlet had reported on this, but found none.
We then broke down the viral video into keyframes. A reverse image search on one of them led us to this X post, uploaded by ANI, on October 31.
#WATCH | Delhi: During Young Leaders Forum, Colonel Sofiya Qureshi says, “…Responsibilities for defending a nation are not just the military’s game; civilians also play a role in addressing external and internal threats… Over the years, the Indian army has trained officers… pic.twitter.com/4ssL6wam7s
— ANI (@ANI) October 31, 2025
ANI also uploaded the full speech on its YouTube channel.
According to the description, Col Qureshi was addressing the Young India Forum, organised by Chanakya Defence Dialogue of the Indian Army on the theme “Veer Yuva: Empowering Youth for India’s National Security.” We went through the speech and could not find any mention of the BJP, RSS, or Bihar Elections anywhere — which made us suspect that this may have been a digitally altered clip. The eye movements of Col Qureshi made the video seem artificially generated.
Thereafter, we ran the viral video through HIVE’s AI detection tool, which showed a 99% possibility of the clip containing AI-generated content.
Based on these findings, we believe that the viral video of Colonel Sofia Qureshi bashing the ‘Trishul Exercises’ as a political gimmick and talking about the ‘saffronisation’ of the Indian Army is not genuine and was likely generated using AI technology.
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