ISLAMABAD: Artificial intelligence tools are being systematically used in India to generate and distribute sexualized imagery targeting Muslim women, according to an Al Jazeera investigation highlighted on Monday.

Victims interviewed by the network described AI-generated content that “looked so real" it became difficult to convince others it was fabricated.

According to Al Jazeera, 24-year-old Jamia Millia Islamia University graduate Ayoub was targeted with an AI-generated video that falsely portrayed her as a Muslim woman "selling her body" to Hindu men. The fabricated clip used photographs from her university years and misidentified people in the images, including her own brother.

"It looked so real that if someone, even my parents, saw the video, they would think it was real," she said.

This is part of a wider pattern of digital abuse that has disproportionately targeted Muslim women in India over recent years, from online "auction" apps to deepfakes and harassment campaigns.

In 2021, the "Sulli Deals" app uploaded photographs of dozens of Muslim women, including journalists, activists, and students, without their consent and falsely listed them as being "for sale."

The following year, a similar platform, "Bulli Bai," displayed images of more than 100 Muslim women in what police described as a deliberate attempt to harass and humiliate them.

According to the Internet Freedom Foundation, both cases were investigated by the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations unit of the Delhi Police's Special Cell, which filed a 2,000-page chargesheet.

Expert opinion

Rights advocates say the emergence of generative AI has made such abuse easier to carry out and harder to detect.

Al Jazeera cited a study by the Washington-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), which analyzed 1,326 publicly available AI-generated posts from 297 accounts across X, Facebook, and Instagram between May 2023 and May 2025. It found that sexualized portrayals of Muslim women attracted the highest engagement of any category of anti-Muslim content, generating more than 6.7 million interactions across the three platforms.

International organizations have also documented the broader impact of digital abuse on women. A global study by UN Women and partner organizations found that more than two-thirds of women journalists, activists, and human rights defenders experienced online violence, with many later facing offline harassment or threats.

UNESCO has warned that women journalists worldwide are increasingly facing AI-driven harassment, including deepfakes and disinformation campaigns designed to damage their credibility and silence their reporting.

Nearly three-quarters of women journalists surveyed by UNESCO reported experiencing online violence.

A report by Sensity AI, an Amsterdam-based cybersecurity company, found that 96% of deepfake videos online were non-consensual pornographic content, with 99% of those targeting women.

Failing legal frameworks

India's Information Technology Act, 2000, contains no explicit definition of deepfakes or AI-generated synthetic media.

Existing provisions used in prosecutions include Section 66E, which criminalizes the non-consensual publication of private images and carries a maximum sentence of three years imprisonment and a fine of 200,000 rupees ($2,400); and Sections 67 and 67A, which prohibit publication of obscene and sexually explicit material in electronic form, with penalties of up to five years imprisonment.

Legal experts, including lawyers from Anand and Anand and scholars writing for the NUJS Law Review, say current penalties are not strong enough to address the rise in AI misuse, noting that there is no specific law defining or penalizing deepfakes, making it difficult to take legal action.

This gap is serious enough that a Member of Parliament introduced a special Regulation of Deepfake Bill during the Winter Session of Parliament in December 2025.

"Islamophobia and misogyny aren't separate phenomena; they feed off each other," the CSOH report said. "The widespread adoption of generative AI in India may result in an explosion of such content with grave implications for religious minorities."

Target

'Looked so real': AI deepfakes target Muslim women in India with sexualized imagery