Fact Check: Woman protester in unbuttoned denim is AI-generated!

While Dharmendra Pradhan has tendered his resignation as education minister, the protest site at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi continues to remain crowded. A photo of a woman wearing unbuttoned denims and a crop top, allegedly at the protest site, has now caught the eyes of many.The image has been shared with captions like, "Protest or soft porn??? Decide yourself. Do you want to send your kids here?" and "Her body, her choice. Meanwhile, her choice is without any shame." The woman is seen standing among protesters, one of whom holds a placard reading, "Her body, her choice".India Today Fact Check found that the image is not real — it is AI-generated, created by a content creator who posts similar AI images on Instagram.OUR PROBEUpon looking closely, a discrepancy stood out: a blue road signboard visible behind the woman had distorted, unreadable lettering — a common artefact in AI-generated images. Next, we checked the image using OpenAI's Verify tool (https://openai.com/research/verify/), which identifies images generated using ChatGPT, the OpenAI API, or Codex. The results showed the image carried a signal consistent with OpenAI-generated content.A reverse search led us to a similar post featuring the watermark "Bellyjellies2.0". We found an Instagram account of the same username, run by one Vishal Soni, whose bio describes him as a creator of "premium realistic content (images)." The account features dozens of similar AI-generated images of women with the same watermark. We also found a screenshot of a post by Soni featuring the image in question, in which he clarified that it was not related to any protest and was his own creation.India Today Fact Check then reached out to Soni to confirm this. He said, "It is totally AI-generated, even though the face itself is not one anyone can relate to. I condemned every question through comments and captions, but after seeing the huge outrage, I felt the need to pull down the image with immediate effect. So, to conclude, it's totally AI-made, and there's no relation to the ongoing protest or any political agenda".Therefore, it is beyond doubt that the image falsely linked to the CJP protests is not real, but AI-generated.- EndsPublished On: Jul 25, 2026 16:59 IST