The Cyber Cell of the Punjab Police has registered cases under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Information Technology (IT) Act after a morphed video of Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh went viral on social media.
The cases have been registered against unknown persons, with preliminary inquiries revealing that the malicious video was uploaded and doctored by someone with the user name "Harsh Sofat" (@harshsofat9). The police have also initiated steps to get the content removed from all social media sites, said a police spokesperson.
In the video, Singh's voice has been altered by deliberately slowing down its pace to create an impression that he is under the influence of some intoxicant.
The spokesperson said that since the video has been wilfully manipulated, uploaded and circulated on social media with the intent of tarnishing the chief minister's image, cases under Sections 67 of the IT Act 2008, and Sections 500 and 505 of the IPC have been registered.
Initial investigations by the cyber cell have revealed that the video had been created using Chinese app 'TikTok', which allows users to dub and alter voices on recorded videos.
The user, according to the police, is following two accounts—"thiscouple" (@mdeepkur87) and "Being Nawaz" (@funnyyadavji), and has three followers, @Happy mundhon" (@sukhdevsukhahappy), "Oyekhurmi" (@oyekhurmi) and "Kinda Kinda" (@kindakinda9) on the TikTok app. The video was initially circulated on a WhatsApp group, "Youth group nabhaz", and also uploaded on a Facebook Page, "Majha Akali Page".
