AI‑generated image falsely shared as seized army weapons in Faridpur before election
A photo recently circulated on Facebook claiming that a large cache of illegal weapons had been recovered in Faridpur during a special army operation ahead of the election. But a Dismislab fact-check found that although weapons were indeed recovered in Faridpur, the image used in the viral post was generated with artificial intelligence (AI).
On February 11, 2026, a Facebook page named Raju Bhai posted a photo (archive link) showing dozens of weapons and glass bottles arranged along the edge of a pond, surrounded by several army personnel. The caption claimed: “Just hours before the election, the army has recovered a huge stockpile of illegal arms in Faridpur. The discovery raises new questions – who stored these weapons, and for what purpose? Thanks to timely action by law enforcement, instability has been avoided. Now the nation hopes for a peaceful, fair, and neutral election. Let democracy win and violence lose.”
As of publication, the photo had been shared more than 3,500 times and had received over 17,000 reactions.
A search for the origin of the incident found multiple news reports (1, 2, 3, 4). According to Prothom Alo, on February 7, a joint force team recovered four pistols wrapped in Scotch tape, 18 rounds of ammunition and more than 200 homemade weapons from a pond in Akh Center near Kanaipur Bazar in Faridpur Sadar.
However, inconsistencies appear in the names labeled on the weapons visible in the viral image. To verify authenticity, Dismislab analyzed the photo using Google Gemini’s AI detection tool SynthID, which examines digital watermarks and identifies signs of artificial image generation.
The analysis showed the image contained strong indicators of AI generation. The tool marked its confidence level as “Very High.” In the heatmap, most grid sections covering the soldiers, arranged weapons, vehicles and the pond appeared in blue, which, in SynthID’s classification, indicates elements “primarily generated using Google AI tools.”
While weapons were genuinely recovered in Faridpur, the photo circulating on Facebook is AI‑generated and does not show the real seizure.
Disclaimer: The original version of this fact-check report was published in Bengali on Dismislab’s Bengali website on February 12, 2026. The English translation was completed later; however, to maintain time accuracy and avoid any potential misinterpretation, the English version has been published with the original publication date.
