'Removal of Sikhs from Army': Origin of 'morphed' video traced to Pak

By Ujwal Jalali

New Delhi, Jan 8 (IANS) Delhi Police have traced the origin of a morphed video to Pakistan in which it was allegedly claimed that the Cabinet Committee meeting on security gave a call for the removal of all Sikh soldiers serving in the Indian Army.

"The technical analysis has pointed out that the accounts that were used to propagate the malicious content were being used from Pakistan," a senior official of the Delhi Police told IANS.

After the video surfaced on social media, it was fact-checked by the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of Delhi Police, which found that the video was morphed and a voice over was superimposed, in which the alleged persons tried to show that the meeting was against the Sikh community.

DCP (Cyber Crime) K.P.S. Malhotra had earlier informed that in reality, the video was shot on the day when a high-level committee was briefing Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the demise of Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat.

General Rawat died when a military helicopter crashed in the Nilgiri hills in Tamil Nadu, costing 14 lives on December 8, 2021.

Such act of promoting disharmony or enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion is prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony and can disturb public tranquillity. It is also an offence under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code.

Time and again it has been noted that the origin of the anti-India content, spread through different social media platforms, comes from across the border in Pakistan.

During the primarily technical investigation, it was noticed that there were various accounts, which had tweeted the same video with the same content and same hashtag.

"All the accounts were created between October 2021 and December 2021. The technical analysis has revealed that these accounts were being operated from a single browser (developed by multilogin.com)," sources said.

Multilogin provides Mimic browser and stealthfox browser, which have features of multi sessions and private sessions.

Following the preliminary probe, around 46 accounts on Twitter that were being operated from Pakistan have been blocked.

On December 21, the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had banned 20 YouTube channels and websites which, according to the orders issued then, were running a concerted campaign of propaganda and disinformation against India.

The channels were launched by The Naya Pakistan Group (NPG), which has a network of YouTube channels with a combined subscriber base of at least 3.5 million. Their videos have had over 550 million views, the Ministry had said.

The 20 channels banned by the Centre included The Punch Line, International Web News, Khalsa TV, The Naked Truth, News 24, 48 news, Fictional Historical Facts, Punjab Viral, Naya Pakistan Global and Cover Story, among others.

Kashmir Global and Kashmir Watch were also among the proscribed websites.

(Ujwal Jalali can be reached at [email protected])