Jalandhar: A trial court in Punjab’s Jalandhar, on Thursday, ordered the removal and blocking of a “doctored” video featuring former Delhi Chief Minister Atishi.
The video clip, which purportedly showed her making controversial remarks about the ninth Sikh master, Guru Tegh Bahadur, was found to be digitally manipulated to incite communal tension.
Acting on an application of the cybercrime police, the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate in Jalandhar said the video’s circulation posed a threat to public order and religious harmony in the state.
The court invoked Rule 3(d) of the Information Technology Rules, 2021, and directed Meta (Facebook and Instagram), X, and Telegram to pull down the objectionable content.
“The allegedly offensive material is directed to be removed forthwith and in any event within 24 hours of the receipt of the court order,” the court ruled and sought a compliance report within 10 days.
It, however, mandated that all identical, mirror, or derivative versions of the content be blocked as and when identified by the state Cybercrime department.
Responding to the court order, Aam Aadmi Party’s national media in-charge Anurag Dhanda told the media that the Jalandhar court gave a major judgment in the matter in which Delhi Minister Kapil Mishra had released a fake video and disrespected gurus.
He said the court, in its judgment, said the video shared by Delhi Minister Mishra was found to be doctored.
Last week, the Jalandhar Police Commissionerate said that an FIR has been registered on a complaint by Iqbal Singh regarding uploading and circulating edited and doctored video of Atishi.
Several social media posts containing a short video clip allegedly showing Atishi, the Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly, making allegedly derogatory and blasphemous remarks against Sikh gurus with highly inflammatory captions have been uploaded on social media platforms.
The Jalandhar Police Commissionerate Spokesperson had said investigations have been conducted in a scientific manner and the video clip containing Atishi’s audio was downloaded from social media platform of Kapil Mishra and forwarded to the Forensic Science Laboratory Director in Mohali for forensic examination.
Even Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann had reacted to the BJP over the “tampering” of Atishi’s Assembly video, declaring “it a deliberate conspiracy to provoke communal unrest in Punjab”.
Asserting that the secular Punjab government would not allow such political theatrics to succeed, the Chief Minister had said the video was edited with false subtitles, an act of ‘beadbi’ (sacrilege), and added that forensic findings have conclusively established that Atishi never used the word “Guru”.
(IANS)
