Hyderabad, May 3 (UNI) Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police have arrested five accused, who have been working in Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Social Media unit, for circulating a morphed video of a speech delivered by Union Home Minister Amit Shah during his election campaign and public meeting at Siddipet, in Hyderabad outskirts.
Those arrested are Pendyala Vamshi Krishna, Manne Sathish, Pettam Naveen, Asma Tasleem and Koya Geetha. All are residents of Hyderabad, said Dara Kavitha, Deputy Commissioner of Police Cyber crimes, Hyderabad City, in a release here on Friday.
All the accused were produced before the XII the A.C.M.M. Court at Nampally, Hyderabad, where they were granted conditional bail.
The court asked them to furnish Rs 10,000 each with two securities and give their attendance before the Investigating Officer on Monday and Friday till further orders.
The arrests were based on the complaint received from BJP State General Secretary G. Premender Reddy on April 27, in which he stated that the Telangana Congress Pradesh Congress Party in its Twitter account posted morphed/fabricated video of Amit Shah.
The said act of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Party President and Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and their social media in morphing/fabricating Amit Shah's speech and committed offence under the I.T. Act.
The deliberate and mischievous act is aimed at misleading the people and voters creating fear amongst the OBC communities.
In this regard Cyber Crime Police, Hyderabad registered a case in U/sec 469, 505(1)C ,171 G, 502(2) IPC and Sec 125 RP Act 1951 and investigated into, the release said.
All those arrested monitored social media posts related to political parties and upload them on their official and personal Twitter handles.
On April 23, 2024, during a public meeting in Medak, Amit Shah made a speech, Vamshi Krishna, who received a morphed video of the speech on Whatsapp, uploaded the morphed video on the "@INCTelangana" Twitter handle and shared it in various WhatsApp groups.
Later, the remaining accused persons who saw the video, shared the same video to their individual twitter handles. When notified by Twitter about sensitive content, they deleted it.
They violated the Model Code of Conduct.
Police seized five mobile phones, I Ball Slide (TAB), 2 ACER Laptops and 2- CPUs from the social media unit, the release added.
The Police cautioned the public not to circulate any videos or photos related to the political parties as this may breach model code of conduct related to the ongoing election.
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