AI-morphed Golden Temple video: Now, Maharashtra cyber police register FIR

After the Amritsar police commissionerate, now the cyber crime wing of Maharashtra Police has registered a case against unknown persons for hurting sentiments of Sikhs by a morphed video of the Golden Temple. This is the second FIR in the past five days.

This was informed by Saab Singh of Damdami Taksal Jatha Bhindra (Mehta) in a statement released here on Saturday.

The case was registered on the complaint of a Mumbai resident, Gursewak Singh. Jaspal Singh Sidhu, a Sikh activist in Maharashtra, along with minority commission member Charandeep Singh had also met the cyber crime officials of Maharashtra in this connection.

“A case under Section 299 of the BNS added with Section 67 of the IT Act was registered for hurting Sikh sentiments, by the cyber crime cell of Maharashtra Police,” said Saab Singh. He said that the police authorities had assured to carry out a probe and those who had uploaded and generated the video through AI would be identified and arrested soon.

A purported video of Golden Temple collapsing in flood waters generated through artificial intelligence had gone viral on social media recently, thereby hurting sentiments of the Sikh Community.

Earlier, taking a serious view of the video, Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) had lodged a complaint with the Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar leading to the registration of an FIR with the cyber crime wing of the city police against unknown accused.

Bhagwant Singh Dhangera, General Manager of Golden Temple had pointed out that the video was shared and viewed by people thousands of times, causing resentment among Sikhs. He had termed the incident unfortunate, adding that the AI technique was being repeatedly misused to tamper with pictures of the Sikh gurus too.

Jaspal Singh Sidhu, president of Maharashtra Sikh Samaj Coordination Committee, said that such instances of AI-generated pictures and digital material had become a cause for concern for the community. He urged the Union Government to take urgent steps so that such no objectionable material is shared on social media.