On the last day of the 45-day Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, the Indian Air Force organized an air show. Numerous pictures and videos from the show were shared online. Meanwhile, one such image featuring three aircraft forming the shape of a trident is gathering a lot of traction on social media. It has been claimed that this picture is of the air show held on the last day of the Kumbh Mela.
MyGovIndia, a platform affiliated to the department of citizen participation of the Union government, also posted the viral picture on Instagram. The accompanying caption said this was a scene from the air show organized by the Indian Air Force in Prayagraj on the eve of Maha Shivratri in which three Sukhoi jet planes formed Hindu god Lord Shiva's trident in the sky. Though this post was deleted later, its archived version is available here.
Retired Major General Harsha Kakar called it the best picture of the year in a post and claimed that three Sukhoi 30 MKI aircraft formed Lord Shiva's trident in the sky.
Media outlets including Live Hindustan, Nai Dunia, and Times Now also promoted the viral image and claimed that the Indian Air Force had formed a trident in the sky on the last day of the Maha Kumbh.
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Several other pages also shared the image with the same claim.
Fact Check
We performed a reverse image search of the viral photo and found it in a tweet by retired Air Marshal Anil Chopra of the Indian Air Force from March 4, 2019. He had tweeted this graphic with a message offering wishes for Maha Shivratri. This makes it clear that this image is not from the air show held on the last day of Maha Kumbh Mela 2025.
The above post salutes the Indian Air Force on the occasion of Maha Shivratri and calls them a 'Maha' army. A keyword search led us to the same image posted on KOEL's (Kirloskar Oil Engines Limited) Facebook page on March 4, 2019. The image also features the KOEL logo.
It is to be noted that during air shows, particularly on the Republic Day, the Indian Air Force often forms a trident-like shape in the sky. We found multiple images of this trident formation exercise across several years in the past (2025, 2021, 2020, 2016). The way the trident shape has been formed in all these air shows is completely different from the one seen in the viral image.
The viral image was also shared in 2020 with the claim that the trident shape was formed in the sky by an IAF plane. We found a fact-check report by Vishvas News in 2020 in which the then Public Relations Officer of the Indian Air Force, Anupam Banerjee, had denied the viral image and said that it was not a trident formed by an IAF plane.
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