Amit Shah’s deepfake video case turns into a game of chess between Hyderabad and Delhi police

Delhi police landed in Hyderabad for the second time on Thursday to issue notices to more Congress workers, which is believed to have alerted the Hyderabad police.

Hyderabad police are yet to mark them as arrested. They took them to the Central Crime Station (CCS) for questioning but haven’t shown arrest.

If their arrests are recorded, they will have to be produced in court and in that case, the Delhi police could seek a prisoner transit warrant to take them to Delhi.

The Delhi police had issued notices on 29 April to Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and those detained by the Hyderabad police.

Also Read: “Don’t come to Telangana and threaten its CM,” Revanth Reddy tells Modi

Case of who arrests first

The cases relate to the circulation of a doctored video of Union Home Minister Amit Shah saying that the BJP would do away with reservations for all sections after coming to power.

However, in the base video from Vijay Sankalp Sabha in Telangana on 23 April he had said that the saffron party would scrap reservations to Muslims as “quota based on religion was against the Constitution”.

Interestingly, although the alleged crime is the same, the Telangana and Delhi police have registered cases under different sections.

Hyderabad police registered a case under sections 469 (punishment for forgery), 505 (1)(c) (printing and engraving of defamatory matter) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

In Delhi, the case was registered under the Information Technology (IT) Act, and sections 153 (provoking rioting), 153 A (provoking enmity), 465 (forgery), 469 (punishment for forgery) and 171 G (spreading false information deliberately) of the IPC.

Only section 465 of the IPC is common in the two cases, related to forgery with a punishment of a maximum of three years if convicted.

Hyderabad police acted on the complaint lodged by a BJP functionary Premender a few days ago but detained the five activists only on Thursday apparently after learning of the imminent action by the Delhi police.

Also Read: Delhi Police to summon Telangana Congress members in Amit Shah’s fake video case

Delhi police serve notices

Earlier in the day, a team of Delhi police visited Gandhi Bhavan in Hyderabad to serve notices to four more persons but returned since the legal cell leaders were not available.

Their earlier notice had said that the people named in it would have to appear before them in Delhi on 1 May and failing to comply with it would lead to criminal proceedings against them under the provisions of the sections of the CrPC 91 and 160.

Meanwhile, a group of lawyers filed a petition in the Delhi High Court seeking a direction to the Election Commission (EC) to social media platforms restraining the transmission and broadcasting of the deep-fake video.

They said the EC had not responded to their petition.

Also Read: BJP insulted Ram by distributing ‘akshintalu’ before Ayodhya event: Revanth Reddy

‘Trying to harass me’

On Wednesday, Revanth Reddy alleged that the Union government was trying to harass him since the complaint was not lodged by any BJP functionary but by the Union Home Ministry.

He said that since Delhi police work under Amit Shah, it was he who sent them to Hyderabad on 29 April to issue notice to the chief minister.

Revanth Reddy said the BJP was trying to act with spite since he had been uncovering the conspiracy of the saffron party to do away with the reservations by reviewing the Constitution after coming to power at the centre with a two-thirds majority.

He said he would not be scared that easily and that he was a fighter.

The chief minister said if the BJP wanted to know about him, they could speak to “the one who is resting now” — referring to BRS supremo K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR).

Revanth Reddy said that KCR could explain to the BJP how he lost the Assembly elections due to the strong-arm tactics against the former.

(Edited by Muhammed Fazil)