Amit Shah morphed video: Five Telangana Congress workers arrested by Hyderabad police, out on bail

Hyderabad: The Cyber Crime police arrested five persons from the TPCC social media unit circulating the morphed video of the speech delivered by Union home minister Amit Shah during his election campaign and public meeting at Siddipet in Telangana.

The persons have been identified as Pendyala Vamshi Krishna, Manne Sathish, Pettam Naveen, Asma Tasleem and Koya Geetha all residents of Hyderabad

Case details

As per police records, on April 27, at 7:30 pm, G Premender Reddy, BJP state general secretary filed a complaint with the police. He stated that the Telangana Congress Party, in its Twitter account, posted morphed/fabricated video of Amit Shah.

The said act of the Telangana Pradesh Party Congress president and their social media in morphing/fabricating Amit Shah’s speech and have committed an offence under the IT Act. The deliberate and mischievous act is aimed at misleading the people and voters creating fear among the OBC communities. In this regard, the Cyber Crime police, Hyderabad, registered a case under sections 469, 505(1)C ,171 G, 502(2) IPC and Sec 125 RP Act 1951.

A1 to A5 work in the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee social media unit. Their job is to monitor social media posts related to political parties and upload them on their official and personal Twitter handles.

The police said that on April 23, 2024, during a public meeting in Medak, Amit Shah made a speech. A1 received a morphed video of the speech on WhatsApp. A1 then uploaded the morphed video on the ‘@INCTelangana’ Twitter handle and shared it in various WhatsApp groups. A2 to A5 saw the video and further shared it to their individual Twitter handles. When notified by Twitter about sensitive content, they deleted it. Thus they violated the Model Code of Conduct.

The police seized five mobile phones, one tablet, 2 laptops and 2 CPUs.

On Friday, they were produced before the ACMM Court at Nampally and orders were passed with the following bail conditions; Rs 10,000 each with two sureties. The accused persons have to give attendance before the IO on Monday and Friday till further orders.

Public advisory

The public is cautioned not to circulate any videos or photos related to the political parties as this may breach the model code of conduct related to the ongoing elections.