A 19-year-old youth from Bihar is being interrogated by Delhi Police in connection with a deepfake video of actor Rashmika Mandanna that was widely circulated on social media recently.
The video supposedly showed Rashmika in skimpy clothes entering an elevator. The original video features a British Indian girl, Zara Patel, and her face has been edited using artificial intelligence (AI) to resemble Rashmika.
According to police investigation, it is suspected that he had first uploaded the video on his social media handle, and later it was circulated on social media.
A notice was served to the youth to join the probe and appear before the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit and bring his mobile phone, which he claimed was used to upload the video, a senior police official told news agency PTI.
An FIR was registered on November 10 under sections 465 (punishment for forgery) and 469 (forgery for purpose of harming reputation) of the Indian Penal Code and sections 66C and 66E of the Information Technology Act at the IFSO Unit of the Delhi Police’s Special Cell.
Following the registration of the FIR, the IFSO Unit also wrote to Meta to get the URL and other details to identify the accused.
Rashmika Mandanna says video ‘extremely scary’
As the video went viral on social media, Rashmika Mandanna took to her Instagram story and wrote, “I feel really hurt to share this and have to talk about the deepfake video of me being spread online. Something like this is honestly, extremely scary not only for me, but also for each one of us who today is vulnerable to so much harm because of how technology is being misused.”
Rashmika further said that the same incident could have traumatised her had she not been an actor and instead a schoolgirl.
She wrote, “Today, as a woman and as an actor, I am thankful for my family, friends and well wishers who are my protection and support system. But if this happened to me when I was in school or college, I genuinely can’t imagine how could I ever tackle this. We need to address this as a community and with urgency before more of us are affected by such identity theft.”
Veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan called for legal action as the video was shared by a user on X.
Later, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Union Minister for Electronics & Technology, wrote on X that deep fakes are the latest and a “more dangerous and damaging form of misinformation” that need to be dealt with by social media platforms. He also cited the legal obligations of social media platforms and IT rules pertaining to digital deception.