Claim: Recently, Muslim female athletes refused to shake hands with an Indian army officer at a sports event.
Fact: There is no evidence to support this claim, and the accompanying image is likely AI-generated.
On 19 July 2025, a Facebook page by the name of Verified Pakistan shared an image allegedly showing Muslim female athletes refusing to shake hands with an Indian army officer. Judging from the sports attire of the athletes, and the background that shows some sort of indoor court, this encounter appeared to have taken place at some sports event. The image contained the embedded caption:
“Muslim Women Athletes Refuse to Shake Hands with Indian Army Officer”.
This post comes in the wake of the recent Pakistan-India military escalation that took place in May 2025.
Pak-India military conflict
On 22 April 2025 26 people, mostly tourists, were killed in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir. India blamed the attacks on Pakistan, whereas Pakistan denied any involvement and demanded a neutral investigation. Here is what followed:
- Soon after the Pahalgam attack, the Indian government announced the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty. The landmark water-sharing treaty had been in place since 1960 and previously endured despite many instances of armed conflict between the neighbouring nuclear countries.
- In the early hours of 7 May, the Indian military launched Operation Sindoor and sent missiles at multiple targets inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The strikes constituted the most serious escalation of military hostilities between the two nations since 1971, killing 40 civilians, including 15 children and wounding 121 others according to Pakistani authorities.
- India claimed that their missiles struck nine “terrorist camps”, whereas Pakistan asserted that the targets were civilian neighborhoods in densely populated areas.
- Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the airstrikes, saying his country had “every right to give a robust response to this act of war imposed by India”.
- Soon after the Indian missile strikes, the Pakistani military announced that they had shot down five Indian warplanes including several Rafale Fifth Generation fighter jets. India has not yet responded directly to this claim, but a growing number of media outlets have confirmed that some Indians planes, including at least one Rafale, did in fact go down during the early morning hours of 7 May 2025.
- On the morning of 8 May, India launched a wave of drone attacks across Pakistan, killing at least one person and wounding several. Pakistan claimed that 25 Indian drones were shot down in different locations across the country and on the following day claimed that the number of drones shot down had grown to 77.
On 10 May 2025, United States President Donald Trump took to X (formerly Twitter) to announce a ceasefire between India and Pakistan. He stated that both countries had agreed to a “full and immediate ceasefire” after a “long night of talks mediated by the United States”. Later in the day, both Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar and India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri confirmed the ceasefire.
Fact or Fiction?
To verify the authenticity of the claim, Soch Fact Check conducted a reverse-image search of the image. The image and the accompanying claim appears to have surfaced as early as 19 July on Instagram and Facebook. There does not appear to be any trace of the claim before this date.
We then conducted a keyword search on Google for “Muslim female athletes Indian army officer” and “Muslim women athletes Indian army officer”. However, we found no credible news reports that such an event had occurred at all, let alone recently.
We also ran the image in the claim through the University of Buffalo’s DeepFake-O-Meter to verify its authenticity. Several of its algorithms for synthesized image detection rated the image in the claim higher than 60% for its likelihood of being AI-generated.
Source: DeepFake-o-meter
Source: DeepFake-o-meter
Source: DeepFake-o-meter
Hence, since there is no evidence online to support the claim, and the image of the athletes and officer is likely AI generated, this claim appears to be false.
Virality
On Facebook, the claim was shared here, here, here, here, and here.
On Instagram, it was shared here, here, here, and here.
On X, it was shared here and here.
On Threads, it was shared here.
Conclusion: There is no evidence to support the claim that Muslim female athletes refused to shake hands with an Indian army officer at any recent sports event.
Background image in cover photo: The Express Tribune
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