Claim: A picture shows an official of the Indian High Commission in London, UK, at a protest organised by the recently-banned Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC).
Fact: The face of an unidentified protester has been replaced with an image of the Indian Ambassador to the Philippines. Social media posts falsely identified the man as an official of the Indian High Commission in the UK.
In the first week of August, multiple social media users posted a photo claiming it shows an official of the Indian High Commission in London, UK, participating in a protest organised by the JAAC, a civil society group that was banned in Pakistan earlier in June.
Some users identified the official as “Shri Ram Prakash” and claimed that the “Indian embassy’s patronage at the global level makes it clear that India is using this demonstration to achieve its geopolitical objectives and establish a specific narrative in the region”.
Unrest, violence in Kashmir
Ahead of the general elections in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, also known as Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), that were boycotted by the opposition parties, the region erupted in severe unrest and deadly clashes.
The elections were originally scheduled to take place in one round on 27 July but later divided into three phases owing to security concerns. The successive polls were nonetheless marred by sporadic instances of violence. The third one took place on 10 August.
According to Reuters, analysts expected the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to win a majority despite delays in voting in some constituencies.
The party already “secured 25 seats in the 53-seat assembly as of Wednesday [12 August], but was widely expected by analysts to win more constituencies in at least two further rounds of voting and be granted additional reserved seats”, it wrote.
“The PPP has so far secured 12 seats — fewer than expected, for which PPP leaders have blamed the PML-N, accusing it of vote rigging. The PML-N has rejected those accusations,” the publication added.
Security forces imposed a significant crackdown on the protests, led by the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), that were sparked by long-held political and economic grievances.
The JAAC has alleged that at least 31 of its protesters have been killed and 400 injured amid the clashes, Arab News reported. Umar Nazir Kashmiri, a core member of the group, accused the government of opening “fire on unarmed demonstrators” as they marched toward Muzaffarabad, it added.
Since the beginning of the unrest in June, “more than 45 people have been killed and hundreds injured”, according to Al Jazeera.
Read our background on the June clashes in Pakistan-administered Kashmir here.
A 29 July report by Dawn quoted AJK Police spokesperson, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Riaz Mughal, as saying, “In 2026 only, 26 of our personnel were martyred, while 157 were seriously injured, and 629 faced minor injuries.” JAAC had snipers amongst them and that almost 70% of the protesters were “criminals”, he alleged.
Rights organisations like Amnesty International and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) reported heavy use of lethal force against demonstrators, alongside communication and internet blackouts across major areas, such as Mirpur and Rawalakot.
Amnesty also urged the Pakistani government to “lift communications blackout” and “allow media and independent observers into the area” in order to conduct an “independent verification of the full extent of the situation on the ground”.
The UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk has called for “prompt, thorough and impartial investigations into all deaths that have occurred due to the unrest, both amongst protesters and members of security forces”, according to spokesperson Jeremy Laurence.
The BBC said there was an atmosphere of fear among the population and that the vehicles and property of the candidates contesting the AJK elections “have been set on fire, while some candidates were subjected to violence”, while attributing the blame to the JAAC.
On the other hand, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar accused India of providing “funds and instructions” for the protests, The Guardian reported.
According to The Express Tribune, the federal and AJK governments have claimed that militants — especially “Fitna al-Khawarij” — have infiltrated the demonstrations in the region, that weapons were recovered from protesters, and that “they had opened fire on security forces”.
“Fitna al-Khawarij” is a term the government uses to refer to the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban.
Minister of State for Interior Tallal Chaudhry spoke alongside Tarar during the 28 July press conference, saying that those participating in the demonstrations would not be considered “protesters but rioters” and urging citizens to stay away and safe from the government crackdown.
Chaudhry also promised “ all-out support to [the] AJK government for maintaining peace and order”, according to the state-run Radio Pakistan.
On 30 July, the AJK Assembly adopted a formal resolution calling for the immediate establishment of an independent, impartial Truth Commission to “investigate the recent unrest, examine all deaths, injuries and property losses, and recommend relief and reforms”.
On 2 August, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s External Publicity (EP) Wing issued “Foreign Media Facilitation Guidelines, 2026.”
The guidelines require “all foreign or international print, electronic, and digital media, including social media & web based platforms”, to register themselves with the EP Wing and obtain a no-objection “official assignment especially for the work outside Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi”. The ministry said the accreditation may be suspended or cancelled if it “acts against the ideology, sovereignty, security, or public order of Pakistan”, among other reasons.
See a report by Soch Fact Check’s sister organisation, Soch Videos, on the new guidelines here.
The same day, the ministry posted an advisory on X (formerly Twitter), saying Al Jazeera engaged in “selective reporting” and “yellow journalism” and that it “sought to misrepresent the AJK elections and the voting process”. It added that the international media outlet’s news stories “confirm(ed) the agenda of external actors with vested interests”.
Al Jazeera’s website is now inaccessible in Pakistan; however, its social media channels can be viewed.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check reverse-searched keyframes from the viral video and the results turned up various different protests by the Kashmiri diaspora in the UK.
Narrowing down the search area to the top-left portion of one of the keyframes — showing Kashmiri flags, a unique building in the background, a street pole advertisement, and a bus — led Google to identify the visuals as a protest in Luton, England, held on 2 August 2026, where demonstrators expressed solidarity with the JAAC.
Three of these results can be found here, here, and here, the third of which is a video posted on Instagram by Murtaza Ali Shah, the UK Bureau Chief for Geo News and The News. The clips were shared on 3, 4, and 2 August, respectively.
The keyframe at the 1:24 mark in Shah’s video is identical to the viral image we’re investigating, except that the face of the man in the centre is different.
A comparison of the screenshot of the viral visual (L) and the keyframe at the 1:23 mark in Shah’s video (R)
Suspecting the picture was likely modified using artificial intelligence (AI), we ran the image through a tool designed by OpenAI to check if it was created using the company’s models.
The tool confirmed that it “found a SynthID watermark that originated from OpenAl”.
OpenAI added the “durable cross-platform SynthID watermarking to images through a partnership with Google”, the company announced in May 2026.
According to Google DeepMind, “SynthID embeds digital watermarks directly into AI-generated images, audio, text or video. The watermarks are embedded across Google’s generative AI consumer products and are imperceptible to humans – but can be detected by SynthID’s technology.”
Results from OpenAI’s verification tool
Moreover, social media users have falsely claimed that the man is an individual named “Shri Ram Prakash” who is associated with the Indian High Commission in the UK.
Prakash is actually the “Principal Private Secretary (Second Secretary) to Deputy High Commissioner,” according to a list of officers on the Indian High Commission’s website as well as the London diplomatic list on a UK government website. However, these do not include any photograph of him.
The man whose face is seen in the bottom-left corner of the viral image is actually Harsh Kumar Jain, India’s Ambassador to the Philippines. His picture is, in fact, a cropped version of the full photograph from the time he met Andrii Sybiha — who was Ukraine’s First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time — in April 2024 as the Ambassador to Ukraine.
Comparison visual showing Jain’s face from the viral photo, his photograph from the meeting with Sybiha, and his profile on the website of the Indian Embassy in the Philippines
Soch Fact Check, therefore, concludes that not only is the image in the claim AI-manipulated, but social media users have also wrongly identified the man as an official at the Indian High Commission in London, UK.
Virality
Soch Fact Check found the visual circulating in over two dozen posts on Facebook, two on Instagram, one on Threads, and seven on X (formerly Twitter).
A media outlet called Dispatch News Desk (DND) also published a report, portraying the viral image as authentic.
Facebook user ‘Noman Noor Khan’, who has previously shared multiple false claims that were debunked by Soch Fact Check, also shared the viral image.
Conclusion: The face of an unidentified protester has been replaced with an image of the Indian Ambassador to the Philippines. Social media posts falsely identified the man as an official of the Indian High Commission in the UK.
Background image in cover photo: Wikimedia Commons
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