Did Sujata Sharma issue a threat against Iran, its oil buyers or arms suppliers? Fact Check
Claim : Sujata Sharma, Joint Secretary (Marketing & Oil Refinery), Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas made a threat against Iran and its oil buyers and arms suppliers.
Conclusion : The claim is totally false. The footage is authentic, taken from ‘Inter-Ministerial Briefing on Recent developments in West Asia’ happened on 12 March 2026, but the audio has been manipulated using AI. No such statement was ever made by Sujata Sharma or any other Indian official in this briefing.
Rating : Totally false 
Several social media users have shared a claim about Sujata Sharma, Joint Secretary (Marketing & Oil Refinery), Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, threatening Iran. X user ‘aliabbasikhan39’ shared such a post, addressed to Iranian officials @araghchi and @drpezeshkian, alleges that Sujata Sharma stated: “We have been assured by senior government officials that the Iranian terrorist attacks on Indian commercial ships shall not be left unanswered. From now onwards, all countries receiving Iranian oil supply & as well as those countries that provide terrorist Iranian regime with weapons and arms remain our target.” –
The post includes a 39-second video clip purportedly shows her making this declaration at an official briefing. View the post below –
@araghchi@drpezeshkian
Breaking Alert ⚠️Sujata Sharma, Joint Secretary (Marketing & Oil Refinery) confirms,
“We have been assured by senior government officials that the Iranian terrorist attacks on Indian commercial ships shall not be left unanswered. From now onwards, all… pic.twitter.com/M2JL54QP7j
— Basharat abbasi (@aliabbasikhan39) March 12, 2026
FACT CHECK
DigitEYE India decided to investigate this claim and found it to be totally false. While the visuals in the video are genuine, the audio has been artificially generated using AI. Sujata Sharma and other Indian officials have not made any such statement as shown in the claim.
We first conducted a web search with the phrase “Sujata Sharma comments on Iran” to learn more about the issue. The search took us to official government sources, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) Fact Check unit issued a clear alert labeling the video a “digitally manipulated” AI deepfake on Facebook. PIB explicitly stated that Pakistani propaganda accounts are circulating it to mislead the public and provided a link to the authentic original video from the same press briefing. View the video and screenshot below –
PIB has uploaded part of this video in their facebook page here, where Sujata Sharma was giving an update that more than 70% of our imports are now coming through routes other than the #StraitofHormuz, and about oil, gas and retail outlets.
We came across the another video uploaded by Kisan India on their Facebook page with the caption : Inter-Ministerial Briefing: पश्चिम एशिया युद्ध का भारत पर असर? सरकार ने तेल-LPG को लेकर दिया बड़ा बयान. In English this reads : Inter-Ministerial Briefing: Impact of the West Asia War on India? Government Issues Major Statement Regarding Oil and LPG. From 1.45 timestamp, one can see Sujata Sharma talking about war situation and oil imports etc.,
Following this, we conducted a reverse image search from various keyframes of the video to check more about the claim. The search took us to a Youtube short uploaded by SK Live uploaded on March 12, 2026. The description states that she spoke about how India is closely monitoring the war situation and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, given its importance for imports. Despite this, crude supply remains stable, supported by India’s strong refining capacity and daily processing.
In any of the above authentic videos, she did not talk about Iranian terrorist attacks or targetting terrorist Iranian regime.
Next, we searched for any direct quotations about Sujata Sharma threatening Iran but did not find any reports. Upon testing the footage used in the claim through Hive Moderation’s AI detector, the results proved the audio was fabricated. View a screenshot of the results below –
Thus, the claim is totally false.
