Viral image of Imran Khan praying inside jail is likely AI-generated - sochfactcheck.com
An image circulating on social media depicting former Prime Minister Imran Khan praying in jail has been identified as likely AI-generated by multiple detection tools
- Incident date
- May 2026
- Target
- Imran Khan
On May 29, 2026, a viral image surfaced on Facebook, X, and TikTok purporting to show former Prime Minister Imran Khan sitting on a prayer mat inside jail. As the politician remains completely out of the public eye, the image prompted immediate scrutiny regarding its authenticity.
What happened
To verify the visual, investigators checked Imran Khan’s and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) official social media accounts, finding no record of the image being shared by official sources. Subsequent analysis using specialized detection software confirmed the image was likely synthetic. The Image Whisperer tool identified significant noise, inconsistent lighting, soft edge quality, and compression artifacts, describing the composition as staged and artificial.
Further verification was conducted using Google’s SynthID, which confirmed with high confidence that the image was created using Google AI. Additionally, the software Undetectable AI flagged the content as AI-generated due to low image quality. The viral post gained significant traction, with one Facebook post accumulating 7,300 likes and 476 shares, while an X post garnered 127,500 views. This incident follows a pattern of fabricated imagery circulating on social media regarding the former premier, all of which have been debunked as having no basis in reality.