Viral video of Shashi Tharoor lauding Pakistan's diplomatic influence after Makkah pact

Home Pakistan Fact check: Viral video of Shashi Tharoor lauding Pakistan's diplomatic influence after Makkah pact signing is doctored The iVerify Pakistan team investigated this content and determined that it is false. On Aug 8, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye signed a joint defence.

The agreement was signed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Saudi Crown Prince and PM Mohammad bin Salman, and Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Al-Safa Palace. Islamabad has described the signing of the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement as a “historic pact”, with Deputy.

What Happened

Another X user shared the same video with a similar caption, saying that Tharoor had praised Pakistani diplomacy. Several other people also shared the same clip on X, as seen here, here, here, and here.

• His post accumulated about 15,000 views.

• A reverse image search was subsequently conducted to trace the source of the viral clip, which yielded an X post by Indian media outlet NDTV dated April 9, 2026.

• Running the video through AI-forensic tools showed that Hive Moderation rated the clip as having a 91 per cent chance of AI-generated speech.

Key Details

Separately, an Instagram user, a London-based journalist as per her bio, posted the clip as well. A fact-check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its virality and keen public interest in the recently-signed defence pact, along with.

• Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

• This fact check was originally published by iVerify Pakistan — a project of CEJ-IBA and UNDP.

• The claim that a viral video shows Shashi Tharoor commending Pakistan’s growing diplomatic role as compared to India in the wake of the Makkah agreement is false.

Why It Matters

Inspecting the video revealed several audio discrepancies: Tharoor’s tone and delivery in the viral clip were inconsistent with his normal way of speaking and appeared robotic, with unnatural pacing, abrupt pauses and awkward emphasis on certain words. The video shows Tharoor and.

• Lastly, a keyword search conducted to corroborate whether any credible Indian or international media outlets had reported such remarks made by Tharoor yielded no results.

• DetectVideo AI also flagged the video as “likely manipulated”, saying “the face-aware deep model branch found manipulation evidence at 87pc probability”.

What Reports Say

Coverage of the story so far points to:

• Continued reporting by The Express Tribune as more details emerge