Bhubaneswar, July 5 (IANS) The Odisha Commissionerate Police on Sunday arrested a 22-year-old youth on the alleged charges of circulating objectionable reels with morphed obscene photos and videos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on his social media account.

The accused youth, Biswajit Sahu, is a resident of Nua Sahi area under Jagatpur police limits in Cuttack district.

Speaking to media persons, Bhubaneswar Police Station Assistant Commissioner of Police (Cyber Crime and Economic Offences), Suchismita Das said, “The posting of objectionable photos and videos of the constitutional heads of our state and country, created by misusing the AI and digital tools on social media has become a trend. While investigating in this regard, the Cyber Crime and Economic Offence police station has arrested one person identified as Biswajit Sahu from Cuttack.”

She said that during routine social media patrolling on July 4, Cyber Crime and Economic Offences Police Station detected the allegedly objectionable content posted through the Instagram account “m.r_biswa__”.

The ACP also added that the police during investigation found Sahu had shared a number of reel videos with people on his account abusing the Chief Minister using obscene languages and digitally altered photos depicting PM Modi and him in an objectionable manner.

The accused has sourced these photos of Chief Minister Majhi and Prime Minister Modi from the internet, modified them and used as thumbnails in his social media posts to engage the people.

The accused even used derogatory comments/lewd gestures and defamatory remarks to describe the events.

These were shared on social media with negative messages and reached millions of people spreading misinformation and obscenity. This was done intentionally to harm the reputation of the Chief Minister through digital means and misguide the youth.

On the basis of the social media patrolling report, a case (101/26) was registered and the investigation was taken up.

Following the probe, the police officers on Sunday arrested the accused and seized one Iphone used for operating the Instagram account, screenshots and downloaded copies of the alleged objectionable Instagram posts, reels/videos and digital evidence collected during the investigation.

A delegation of Bharatiya Janata Party has recently filed a separate case at the Bhubaneswar Cyber Crime and Economic Offences Police Station, against unknown persons for sharing objectionable posts on social media targeting the Odisha Chief Minister.

–IANS

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