UP CM’s fake video promoting a medicine goes viral, FIR lodged

Lucknow: The 41-second video of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath showing him promoting an alleged medicine for diabetes recently went viral on social media.

It is now understood that the video was fake as it is found to have been generated using artificial technology (AI).

Following the complaint of Inspector Mohammed Muslim Khan posted at cybercrime at DGP office, cyber police station, Hazratganj, an FIR has been registered against Facebook profile ‘Grace Garsia’ under IPC sections 419 (cheating by impersonation), 420 (cheating), 511 (attempted offence) and section 66 of the IT Act, 2008.

The 41-second video, which has been cut from a clip of a news channel, was posted on February 26 by an FB account ‘Grace Garsia’.

It has got 225K views and 120 shares on the Facebook where the video also had thumbnails that said, “Bharat me Madhumeh par vijay prapt ki gai hai. Madhumeh ko alvida kahen (Diabetes has been conquered in India. Say goodbye to diabetes).”

The complainant in his FIR said he found the Facebook profile where a video of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was uploaded.

In the video using AI tools, the Chief Minister’s audio and the voice narration were changed to promote buying diabetes medicine through the website.

“In the video, it was also seen that the Chief Minister is saying that the medicine has been developed by Indian scientists and whoever buys the medicine by visiting the website will be honoured by God,” the inspector claimed, sharing the link to the posted video and the Facebook profile.

IANS with edits