Five Arrested For Circulating Morphed Video Of Amit Shah Speech

The Cyber Crime police arrested five persons, identified as Pendyala Vamshi Krishna, Manne Sathish, Pettam Naveen, Asma Tasleem and Koya Geetha, all residents of Hyderabad and working in the TPCC social media unit, accusing them of circulating a morphed video of the speech delivered by Union Home Minister Amit Shah during his election campaigning and public meeting at Siddipet.

On April 27 the police received a complaint from G Premender Reddy, BJP State General Secretary, in which he said that the Telangana Congress in its Twitter account had posted a morphed/fabricated video of Amit Shah.

The act of the Telangana Congress President (Revanth Reddy) and the unit's social media morphing/fabricating Amit Shah's speech was an offence under the IT Act, Reddy said, and was aimed at misleading the people and creating fear amongst the OBC communities. In this regard the Cyber Crime police, Hyderabad, registered a case and took up investigation.

The police said that on April 23, 2024, Vamshi Krishna received a morphed video of a speech made by Union Home Minister Amit Shah during a public meeting in Medak, over Whatsapp. Krishna then uploaded the morphed video on the "@INCTelangana" Twitter handle, and shared it in various WhatsApp groups. The other accused saw the video and shared it further on their individual Twitter handles. Thus they violated the Model Code of Conduct.

The five were produced before the Nampally criminal court in Hyderabad, and were given bail.

Dara Kavitha, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Cyber Crimes, Hyderabad, cautioned the public not to circulate any videos or photos related to the political parties as that could breach the Model Code of Conduct for the ongoing elections for the Lok Sabha.