#FactCheck- Old Manipur Convoy Video Falsely Linked to CRPF Deployment in West Bengal
Executive Summary
A video showing a military convoy moving along a road is being widely circulated on social media with the claim that the entry of CRPF forces into West Bengal has changed the situation on the ground, suggesting strict action is underway during the ongoing elections. However, research by CyberPeace found the claim to be misleading. The video is not recent and has been available online since February 2025.
Claim
The 12-second viral clip shows multiple heavy vehicles moving in a convoy on a road. It has been shared on X (formerly Twitter) with a caption claiming that CRPF’s entry into West Bengal has led to a shift from dialogue to strong action, along with communal assertions.
Fact Check
During the verification process, we found that the same video had been posted by several X users around February 17, 2025. In those earlier posts, the video was described as being from Manipur, not West Bengal.
Further analysis revealed that the video contains background audio in the Manipuri language. To confirm this, we contacted a Manipuri journalist, who stated that the audio includes announcements asking people to stay indoors and avoid gathering on the streets. Notably, this audio is missing in the currently viral version of the clip.Although we could not independently verify the exact date and precise location of the footage, visual elements such as road dividers and streetlight patterns closely resemble those found in Imphal, the capital city of Manipur.
Additionally, reports confirm that central armed police forces have indeed been deployed in West Bengal for election duties in multiple phases. However, there is no evidence linking this specific video to those deployments.
Conclusion
The viral claim is misleading. The video does not show CRPF deployment in West Bengal during the ongoing elections. Instead, it appears to be an older clip from Manipur, likely recorded in early 2025, and has been shared with a false and communal narrative. There is no credible evidence to support the claim made alongside the video. Users are advised to verify content before sharing, especially during sensitive events like elections.
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Introduction
Digitalization in India has been a transformative force, India is also marked as the second country in the world in terms of active internet users. With this adoption of digitalization and technology, the country is becoming a digitally empowered society and knowledge-based economy. However, the number of cyber crimes in the country has also seen a massive spike recently with the sophisticated cyber attacks and manipulative techniques being used by cybercriminals to lure innocent individuals and businesses.
As per recent reports, over 740,000 cybercrime cases were reported to the I4C, in the first four months of 2024, which raises serious concern on the growing nature of cyber crimes in the country. Recently Prime Minister Modi in his Mann Ki Baat address, cautioned the public about a particular rising cyber scam known as ‘digital arrest’ and highlighted the seriousness of the issue and urged people to be aware and alert about such scams to counter them. The government has been keen on making efforts to reduce and combat cyber crimes by introducing new measures and strengthening the regulatory landscape governing cyberspace in India.
Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre
Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) was established by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to provide a framework and eco-system for law enforcement agencies (LEAs) to deal with cybercrime in a coordinated and comprehensive manner. I4C handles the ‘National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal’ (https://cybercrime.gov.in) and the 1930 Cyber Crime Helpline. Recently at the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) Foundation Day celebration, Union Home Minister Amit Shah launched the Cyber Fraud Mitigation Centre (CFMC), Samanvay platform (Joint Cybercrime Investigation Facilitation System), 'Cyber Commandos' program and Online Suspect Registry as efforts to combat the cyber crimes, establish cyber resilence and awareness and strengthening capabilities of law enforcement agencies.
Regulatory landscape Governing Cyber Crimes
Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act) and the rules made therein, the Intermediary Guidelines, Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and Bhartiya Nyay Sanhita, 2023 are the major legislation in India governing Cyber Laws.
CyberPeace Recommendations
There has been an alarming uptick in cybercrimes in the country highlighting the need for proactive approaches to counter these emerging threats. The government should prioritise its efforts by introducing robust policies and technical measures to reduce cybercrime in the country. The law enforcement agencies' capabilities must be strengthened with advanced technologies to deal with cyber crimes especially considering the growing sophisticated nature of cyber crime tactics used by cyber criminals.
The netizens must be aware of the manipulative tactics used by cyber criminals to target them. Social media companies must also implement robust measures on their respective platforms to counter and prevent cyber crimes. Coordinated approaches by all relevant authorities, including law enforcement, cybersecurity agencies, and regulatory bodies, along with increased awareness and proactive engagement by netizens, can significantly reduce cyber threats and online criminal activities.
References
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/1499739/india-cyber-crime-cases-reported-to-i4c/#:~:text=Cyber%20crime%20cases%20registered%20by%20I4C%20India%202019%2D2024&text=Over%20740%2C000%20cases%20of%20cyber,related%20to%20online%20financial%20fraud
- https://www.deccanherald.com/india/parliament-panel-to-examine-probe-agencies-efforts-to-tackle-cyber-crime-illegal-immigration-3270314
- https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2003158
Introduction
Two of the most influential voices offered strikingly divergent visions of humanity’s technological future in May 2026. On one side of the equation was Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, who spoke of a future in which intelligence would be a "service like electricity or water," available on a metered basis and powered by massive AI infrastructure. On the other side was Leo XIV, the Pope of the Catholic Church, whose encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, presented the Church's most substantial response to AI, presenting the technology not simply as a technical innovation but also as a crucial moral, social, and civilizational challenge.
The differences in their views run much deeper than merely those regarding control and development. At issue is a conflict in understanding intelligence, the purpose of technology, and the dignity of man. While Altman saw intelligence as an abundant economic factor, one that could be produced, distributed, and consumed, Leo XIV emphasized that intelligence is indissociable from the person and that we should be wary of turning human potential into mere merchandise. Their clash of visions can essentially be understood as two different answers to the question: What is a human being, and to whose service should technology be devoted?
Intelligence as Infrastructure
Altman implies that artificial intelligence will follow the trajectory of electricity in industrial society, where the utility became available everywhere as part of the bedrock of society. The ultimate goal is to generate abundance. Cognitive ability will become cheaper and more readily available until it is so inexpensive that it is built into everything.
From the perspective of the business, this is compelling. In many ways modern AI already has infrastructure-like properties. Programmers, businesses, governments, and even individuals are using intelligence as a commodity delivered by a centralized platform and API in a way similar to how previous generations would have used the electricity grid. Altman is essentially predicting that this trend will reach its ultimate form, where intelligence becomes a utility.
There are several assumptions inherent in this utility metaphor; however, utilities are never neutral technologies; they are all forms of governance, ownership, and control. It is not merely the resource being delivered that makes electricity grids, telephone systems, and water infrastructure powerful but the institutions that mediate access to those resources. In Altman's statement "people will buy it from us," there is a political question inherent: Who does the infrastructure of cognition belong to?
Altman himself is also concerned with these issues, often reiterating that this technology could lead to an unprecedented concentration of power and wealth. Yet this concern is a paradox, as truly democratized artificial intelligence does not appear possible without immense capital investment, colossal data centers, proprietary models, and a monopolization of talent. The path to making intelligence universally available appears to lie through unprecedented centralization.
The Vatican's Response: Beyond Technology
Magnifica Humanitas approaches this from a different perspective. It is not, fundamentally, a document on AI policy but on social philosophy, rooted in the Catholic tradition of social teaching. Just as Rerum Novarum, published in 1891, had explored the social implications of industrial capitalism, Leo XIV views AI as a new juncture in humankind's engagement with technology and power.
Two biblical images are recurring throughout the encyclical: Babel and Jerusalem. Babel, the archetype of technical ambition without purpose or moral intent, is an effort to reorder and recenter human society based on conformity, centralization, and the delusion of self-sufficiency. Jerusalem, rebuilt under Nehemiah, is an image of collective reconstruction based on participation and responsibility.
The symbolic weight is critical. Leo XIV is not arguing that technology in itself is inherently dangerous. He is, rather, suggesting that the tools of technology will inherently contain and perpetuate whatever values, incentives, and priorities of the architects and wielders of these technologies. The question is not therefore whether AI should exist, but rather whether it increases human flourishing or enhances systems of control.
This provides what is likely the most significant realization within the encyclical that AI and human intelligence are categories distinct in kind, not in degree. AI can simulate, calculate, and compute, but it can never possess awareness, ethical responsibility, embodiment, or meaningful relationships. As such, decisions impacting human life can no longer be deferred to algorithms in a manner that negates the human good.
The Problem of Power
The most evident clash between Altman's vision and Magnifica Humanitas lies in power dynamics.
The utility model of Altman places the assumption that intelligence can be centrally controlled and widely disseminated. However, the Vatican perceives major political consequences from the concentration of cognitive ability. According to the encyclical, this kind of concentration can lead to major political problems because small groups are given immense power over the economy, public debate, and democracy by possessing the necessary control over data, computation, and the network.
This idea is becoming more prominent in recent research. Experts like Kate Crawford, for instance, have described AI as 'a registry of power' in which systems build up hierarchies of social, political, and economic power. Digital colonialism scholars also show that the control of the network of intelligence under a few transnational corporations may diminish power that would otherwise reside with local authorities and democratic institutions.
The problem, seen from this point of view, does not simply address technology but sovereignty itself. If intelligence is provided as a metered service within private platforms, the access to knowledge, reason, and decision-making tools might rest with entities outside the public sphere, unconcerned with democracy.
The Vatican's solution relies on the principle of subsidiarity; decisions should be taken at the lowest possible levels, respecting the autonomy of individuals, communities, and local institutions. This principle directly contradicts the proposals that see cognitive infrastructure located within a few multinational organizations.
The Hidden Labour Behind AI
A particularly important segment of Magnifica Humanitas addresses the invisible labor of the AI economy.
While discourse on AI frequently conceptualizes it as an intangible or ethereal technology residing within "the cloud," the opposite is in fact the case. AI relies on the unseen labors of data annotators, content moderators, miners harvesting rare earth metals, construction workers creating data centers, and technicians repairing digital infrastructure. In many cases, these workers exist in marginal situations; investigations have revealed poor wages, minimal rights, and psychologically damaging working conditions, especially for content moderators and data annotators in the Global South. Critics contend that the AI of today exists on the backbone of an unacknowledged global workforce that is shielded from consumers of AI technology. In the encyclical, this idea of the AI economy is framed in terms of human dignity, the standard by which all progress, technological or otherwise, must be measured. Progress cannot be defined solely in terms of efficiency and productivity but must be defined by its consequences for workers, society, and human relationships. While the technology of AI may confer tremendous value to a few, it must not do so at the expense of the humanity of others. It gives a key critique of Altman’s utility model that the appeal of abundant intelligence often focuses on products while neglecting the social and material conditions in which it is produced.
A Clash of Anthropologies
The deepest philosophical disagreement of Altman's and Leo XIV's is over anthropology, i.e., who human beings actually are.
Altman’s view presumes an ability to quantify and allocate the human capacity for intelligence. The more intelligent the society, the better the society; and intelligence becomes the prime causal factor whose production must be maximized by the machine.
The Vatican rejects this fundamental principle. According to the argument of Magnifica Humanitas, human value is not located in intelligent productivity or efficiency or economic productivity. Dignity is non-conditional and cannot be reduced to measures of performance. One has dignity not because one can compute, produce, and optimize, but because one is a person.
The implications of this difference are vast. If intelligence is principally treated as an economic asset, then humans will constantly have to deal with being judged as being of greater or lesser use compared to the machine. If dignity is intrinsic, machines must remain instruments of the flourishing of the human, irrespective of machine efficiency. In sum, this is not a debate over machines. It is a debate over whether society is going to be defined according to an ideology of optimization or an ideology of humanity.
Conclusion
The juxtaposition of Sam Altman’s model of utility and Leo XIV’s idea of Magnifica Humanitas defines one of the key intellectual arguments of our times. Altman presents a vision of abundance, efficiency, and humanly impossible intellectual capacity. Leo XIV represents what happens when intelligence is divorced from the demands of ethics, democracy, and human dignity; when the demands they represent only contribute to its ultimate capacity to wound the needs it serves.
It is not whether we will build machines more and more intelligent; it is what politics and values will govern these machines. When intelligence becomes a service, whose interests will govern the machine, who will write the rules, and who will be the direct beneficiaries? When dignity is the source from which man and machine alike emerge, the service must not be judged on what the machine does best but on what it can do for man. The ultimate question is whether we will be able to maintain a view of ourselves that is larger than just our capacity to engineer.
References:
- Atlas of AI, Crawford, Kate. Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021.
- Pope Leo XIV. Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. Vatican City: Holy See, 2026.
- Pope Leo XIII. Rerum Novarum. Vatican City: Holy See, 1891.
- Pope John Paul II. Laborem Exercens. Vatican City: Holy See, 1981.
- Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Dignitas Infinita. Vatican City: Holy See, 2024.
- International Theological Commission. Quo Vadis, Humanitas? Thinking About Christian Anthropology in the Face of Some Scenarios on the Future of Humanity. Vatican City, 2026.
- Nick Lichtenberg. "Sam Altman Admits AI Is Killing the Labor-Capital Balance—and Says Nobody Knows What to Do About It." Fortune, 12 March 2026.
A photograph showing Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding a trident and dressed in royal attire is being widely shared on social media. Users circulating the image are claiming that it shows PM Modi in a regal outfit.
However, a verification by the Cyber Peace Foundation’s Research Desk has found that the claim is false. The investigation established that the viral image is not authentic and has been generated using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Claim:
On January 11, 2026, several Instagram users shared the image with captions describing it as a photograph of Prime Minister Modi in royal attire.
Links and archived versions of the posts, along with screenshots, are provided below.
Fact Check:
To verify the claim, relevant keywords such as “PM Modi holding trishul” were searched on Google. This led to a report published by Navbharat Times on January 10, 2025. The report features photographs of Prime Minister Modi holding a trident during his visit to the Somnath Temple. However, in the original images, he is seen wearing normal attire, not royal clothing as shown in the viral image. Link and screenshot
In the next step of the investigation, the original photograph was traced to the official Instagram account of BJP Gujarat, where it was posted on January 11, 2026. The post clearly identifies the image as being from Somnath Temple. Link and screenshot: https://www.instagram.com/p/DTVlb-9Da1V
A close examination of the viral image raised suspicion about digital manipulation. The image was then analysed using the AI detection tool TruthScan. The tool’s assessment indicated a 97 percent likelihood that the image was AI-generated.
Further comparison between the viral image and the original photograph revealed that all visual elements match except the clothing, confirming that the attire was digitally altered using AI tools.
Conclusion
The claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared in royal attire is false. The Cyber Peace Foundation’s research confirms that the viral image was created using AI by altering the clothing in an original photograph taken during PM Modi’s visit to Somnath Temple. The manipulated image was shared online to mislead users.
