New Delhi: Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor He on Thursday slammed a deepfake video circulating on social media that wrongly attributed comments to him praising Pakistan’s diplomatic handling of the boycott of the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.An AI-generated video shared by a Pakistani user on X shows Tharoor saying:“I thought Pakistan performed really well, I didn’t know what they were going to do on the field but they were absolutely brilliant diplomatically and the Indian Cricket Board was totally nailed. Put your hands down. This is a lesson, good diplomacy can make a weak country look like Goliath, Pakistan has done it, I want to thank them, this is unthinkable. “
The fabricated video was titled “Pakistan beats India” and Shashi Tharoor added, “Pakistan deserves appreciation for its bold stance in the 2026 icct20 world cup”.Tharoor quipped that the video was fake and stressed that neither the words nor the voice belonged to him. Shashi Tharoor wrote in his post, “‘Fake News’ created by AI – not even good. Neither my words nor my voice.”In fact, he had earlier described Pakistan’s decision to boycott the group match against India on February 15 as “pretty disgraceful” and criticized the increasing politicization of cricket. He urged all stakeholders to engage in urgent dialogue to resolve the escalating dispute.Tharoor’s remarks came after Pakistan announced that they would miss the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup against India on February 15. The Pakistani government confirmed the decision in a post on X and said the team “will not take the field” against India.
