Owaisi, Hanuman, and an AI-generated fiction: A fact-check

Recently, social media users circulated a sixteen-second video featuring Asaduddin Owaisi, the Member of Parliament from Hyderabad and president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), performing aarti — a Hindu devotional practice involving the waving of lamps before deities — at a Hanuman temple. However, the viral visual is AI-generated.

A user on Threads shared the video on December 4, 2025, with a Hindi caption that translates to: “There is nothing wrong, their ancestors were Hindus, they are returning to Sanatan.” The post received 8,100 likes, 3,700 shares, and 253 reposts.

On December 5, Deepak Kalappat, Social Media Content Writer/Strategist at Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), based in Kodungalur, Kerala, shared the same video on Facebook. The post garnered 150 reactions, 37 comments, and 20 shares as on 11th December 2025.

Although many users refuted the video as AI in the comments, several others believed it to be true. One user commented, “Survival,” implying that the AIMIM president was performing aarti for his political survival. Another user wrote, “If this is real, he is emulating his forefathers.”
We also found that several users on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram had recently shared the video.

Why is the viral visual fake?

While analysing the viral posts, we noticed that most of the comments indicated that the video was fabricated using AI. A detailed inspection revealed that the name of the temple was incorrectly spelled in Hindi. Errors in names, signs and nonsensical text are common indicators of AI-generated or manipulated content.

Furthermore, we observed a logo in the video that bears a strong resemblance to the logo of Google Gemini.

Subsequently, we used the HIVE Moderation’s AI-generated content detection tool and verified that the footage of AI-generated.

The analysis of the viral video suggests the content is fabricated using AI and is therefore fake.