Claim: A video shows Aleema Khan calling Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir a radicalised Islamist who wants a war with India, during an interview with Yalda Hakim of Sky News.
Fact: The clip is doctored. Moreover, Yalda Hakim refuted the claim, saying it was a deepfake.
On 3 December, an X user that Soch Fact Check has extensively debunked in the past, shared a video (archive) purportedly showing Aleema Khan, the sister of jailed PTI founder Imran Khan, giving an interview to Sky News. She calls Army Chief Asim Munir, a “radicalised Islamist” in the clip.
The description of the post reads:
“BREAKING: In a Sky News interview, Aleema Khan, the sister of ex-PM Imran Khan, alleged that Army Chief Asim Munir engineered the May conflict with India to bolster his Islamic identity, and claimed the selective targeting of Hindus in Pahalgam was part of his plan.”
In the video, the news anchor Yalda Hakim asks :
“So Miss Aleema, why do you think that Pakistan went through a war in May? And I was also privy to some of the incidents that happened during the war. I also got a chance to interview the defence minister, but I want to understand why you think the war happened between India and Pakistan? Your statements created some chaos as I have heard.”
Aleema Khan responds to Hakim saying:
“Well Yalda, this Asim Munir is a very radicalised Islamist, Islamic conservative and this is the reason why he yearns for war with India because his Islamic radicalisation and conservatism is forcing him to fight against those who don’t believe in Islam. This is what differentiates him from Imran Khan who is a pure liberal.
“So whenever Imran Khan comes to power you will see that he always tries to befriend India and even BJB. Whenever there is this radical Islamist Asim Munir, you will see there will be war with India and not just India, even the allies of India will suffer. I keep telling again and again that Imran Khan is an asset and the west needs to increase its efforts to free Imran Khan.”
Supporters of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) held protests outside Adiala jail in Rawalpindi after the party’s founder Imran Khan’s sisters, Aleema Khan, Noreen Niazi and Uzma Khan, were denied a meeting with him in November 2025. This event sparked rumours and claims about Khan’s whereabouts and his alleged death.
However, Uzma Khan met the PTI founder in December and said that he was fine but was kept in solitary confinement.
Moreover, Soch Fact Check also debunked claims about Imran Khan’s alleged death here.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check analysed the video and found it is a deepfake.
An initial reverse-image and keyword search yielded an original interview of Aleema Khan on Sky News, posted on YouTube on 3 December 2025. In the clip, Aleema Khan does not say anything about Asim Munir being a “radicalised Islamist,” and neither does Yalda Hakim ask her about the India-Pakistan war, which indicated that the video in the claim was fake.
Khan’s sister mostly speaks about his health in the original interview, and says he is in solitary confinement. She adds that her other sister met Imran Khan, who told her that Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir is responsible for what’s happening to him.
Comparing the clip in the claim with the original video also revealed inconsistencies typical of a deepfake. In this case, Aleema Khan’s voice sounds more monotonous than her actual voice in the real Sky News interview, and lacks natural human qualities. Her voice is naturally coarse in the original Sky News video.
Moreover, when the fake video went viral, Yalda Hakim, the host of the program, also debunked it on X (archive), saying:
“This is terrifying — a deepfake of my interview with Imran Khan’s sister, Aleema Khan, is circulating. It falsely claims we discussed the Pakistan-India war earlier this year. We did NOT. This clip is completely fake.”
Additionally, Yalda Hakim spoke to Raqib Hameed Naik, the Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), about her deepfake interview with Aleema Khan and how it spread quickly far and wide. Naik observed, “When you first see this video, it’s very hard to tell if it’s real or not. It looks and sounds very convincing. But if you watch it a couple of times, you begin to notice that something is off… there are small glitches in the facial expressions and the audio.”
Deepfake Detection Tools
Soch Fact Check analysed the clip using a deepfake detection tool, Hiya. When different parts of the clip were run through the tool’s Chrome extension, it gave an authenticity score of 1/100, stating that “the sampled voice is likely a deepfake”.
Results from Hiya’s Chrome Extension.
Furthermore, analysing the complete audio in one place using the InVid verification tool, which integrates Hiya, also yielded a probability of 99%, confirming that the audio fragment is “very likely AI-generated”.
Results from InVid that integrates Hiya, and allows an analysis of the full audio sample in one place.
Soch Fact Check, therefore, rates the claim false.
Virality
The video was shared on X here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
The deepfake was shared on Facebook here and here.
On LinkedIn, the clip was shared here.
Indian publications amplified the false claim here, here, here, here and here.
Defence Minister of Pakistan Khawaja Asif also amplified the false claim by sharing an article by an Indian publication on X here.
Conclusion: The clip of Aleema Khan’s interview with Yalda Hakim on Sky News, which shows her calling Pakistan’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir a “radicalised Islamist” is doctored.
Background image in cover photo: Geo News
To appeal against our fact-check, please send an email to appeals@sochfactcheck.com