The Telangana Police on Thursday arrested five members of the state Congress IT Cell in connection with a doctored video of Union Home Minister Amit Shah. A team of Delhi Police, which is probing the case, is also in Telangana. However, the arrest was made by Hyderabad Cyber Crime.
Earlier, the Delhi Police summoned Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy for allegedly posting the video on X. Reddy's lawyer appeared before the Delhi Police on Wednesday and said that the Congress leader had nothing to do with creating or posting the doctored video of Amit Shah's speech.
The Police sources told news agency PTI that they were close to identifying the creator of the deepfake video but before reaching out to the suspect they have to verify about others who uploaded or forwarded it. Notices had also been served to five more people from different opposition parties for allegedly sharing the video.
The summonses were issued to Reddy and four Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) members - Shiva Kumar Ambala, Asma Tasleem, Satish Manne, and Naveen Pettem - under sections 91 and 160 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
According to police sources, if a person is served notice under section 160/91 of the CrPC, the person can either make a physical appearance before the IO or send a legal representative.
The Special Cell of Delhi Police had on Sunday registered an FIR after the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), which is under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), filed a complaint about the doctored video of Shah where his statements indicating a commitment to abolish quota for Muslims on religious ground in Telangana were changed to make it seem that he was advocating scrapping of all reservations.
Jharkhand Congress president Rajesh Thakur has also been summoned by the Delhi Police on May 2 in connection with the probe. "I received the notice from Delhi Police on Tuesday. But, it is beyond my understanding why the notice was served to me. This is nothing but anarchy," Thakur said.
The Delhi Police has not received any reply from X regarding reports on those IDs that shared the doctored video of Amit Shah.
(With inputs from PTI)