The Delhi Police has arrested an engineer in connection with the deepfake video of Bollywood actor Rashmika Mandanna. Eemani Naveen, a native of Pedanandipadu village in Guntur allegedly created the deep fake to boost his followers on Instagram.
The Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) Unit of Special Cell, Delhi Police arrested Naveen after analysing around 500 social media accounts.
Deputy Commissioner of Police, IFSO Unit, Hemant Tiwari said that Naveen used to run a fan page for Rashmika Mandanna and also created two more fan pages for another two noted celebrities.
“We’ve arrested the main accused identified as Eemani Naveen, from Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur. Laptop and mobile phone recovered from him. His deleted data is also being recovered…He used to run a fan page of a famous film actress (Rashmika Mandanna) and also created two more fan pages of another two noted celebrities,” the officer said.
The police said that he got scared and deleted the post after learning that his video has triggered a nationwide controversy.
“Later when he realized that it became a national sensation. He also saw tweet from famous film stars against the said deep fake video. He got scared and deleted the said posts from the Instagram Channel and also changed the name of Insta channel. He had also deleted the relevant digital data from his devices,” the police officer said.
The video last year drew strong reactions from several personalities and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also expressed concerns regarding the misuse of the technology.
This and more similar deep fake videos of famous personalities, including cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar and PM Modi himself, prompted the government to issue an advisory.
Earlier this month, the government also announced that it will notify new IT rules to curb the deep fake menace over non compliance of the advisory.
“Government is very clear on the compliance of the advisory on deepfake issue, if we find that the advisory is not being followed by, we will follow it up with very clear, amended IT rules that we had notified,” Chandrasekhar said.