Union Home Minister and BJP leader Amit Shah.
Credit: PTI Photo
Ahmedabad: The Gujarat police on Tuesday said they have arrested Congress MLA Jignesh Mevani's personal assistant (PA) and an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) functionary for allegedly sharing Union Home Minister Amit Shah's deep fake video, in which he is purportedly seen announcing the curtailment of reservation rights of the SCs, STs and OBCs.
The Ahmedabad Cyber Crime Cell arrested the duo after an FIR was registered last night.
One, identified as Satish Vansola, is a resident of Palanpur in Banaskantha and works as the PA of the Dalit leader and Vadgam MLA.
The other was Rakesh Baria from Limkheda town of Dahod district, said to be associated with Aam Aadmi Party.
A preliminary probe revealed that Vansola has been working as the PA of Congress MLA Jignesh Mevani since the last six years, while Baria has been serving as the AAP's Dahod district president since the last four years, the police said.
They have been booked under sections 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth), 505(1), making, publishing or circulating any statement, rumour which is likely to incite, any class or community of persons to commit any offence against another community 469 (forgery) of Indian Penal Code along with sections of IT act.
Deputy Commissioner of Police, Cyber Crime, Lavina Sinha said the duo was arrested after a monitoring cell of the agency came across the two profiles on social media which had shared the "edited and altered video." She said that the two accused circulated the fake video while a probe was on to find out who edited the video.
The alleged doctored video is related to union home minister Amit Shah's speech claiming to end reservation. Police said that the video clip was taken from last year's speech in Telangana where Shah is reported to have said that BJP would scrap "unconstitutional reservation of Muslims."
The release said the duo had uploaded the edited video of Amit Shah's speech with an intention to create enmity between reserved castes and unreserved castes in view of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
"Both of them had shared this edited video of Amit Shah on their Facebook pages. They received this video on their WhatsApp and investigations are still on to nab the person who had edited this video," said Deputy Commissioner of Police, Cyber Crime, Lavina Sinha.
Following Vansola's arrest, Mevani said Dalits from Banaskantha and Patan Lok Sabha seats will keep this in mind during voting.
"Satish is not just my PA, he is like my brother. BJP's IT Cell has been spreading fake videos for a long time. But instead of taking any action against them, police have arrested a common man like Vansola who had posted that video by mistake," said Mevani, working president of Gujarat Congress and MLA from Vadgam (SC) seat of Banaskantha.
(With PTI inputs)