FIR registered in Indore over morphed video projecting Vijayvargiya as ‘Ravan'

Indore, October 27

The Indore police on Friday registered an FIR over a morphed video purportedly projecting BJP candidate for Madhya Pradesh polls Kailash Vijayvargiya as Ravan and his Congress rival as Lord Ram, a day after a non-cognisable offence was registered in the city over the same matter.

Vijayvargiya is the BJP candidate from the Indore-1 constituency for the November 17 MP assembly elections. He is pitted against sitting legislator and Congress leader Sanjay Shukla.

While the non-cognisable offence report (NCR) was registered at the Aerodrome police station, the FIR (first information report) has been registered at the crime branch’s police station under Indian Penal Code sections, including 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings), 298 (words intentionally uttered with intent to outrage religious feelings), and 500 (defamation).

Police registered the FIR after BJP’s legal cell workers Ashish Dwivedi and Harshal Singh Raghuvanshi lodged a complaint alleging that someone had posted the morphed video in a group named ‘Siyasi Daav Pech’ on WhatsApp on Dussehra, the official said.

In the video, depicting a Ram-Ravan battle scene in a television serial, the pictures of Vijayvargiya and Shukla were super-imposed on the faces of those enacting Lanka king Ravan and Lord Ram, respectively.

The FIR has been registered against the handler of the mobile number from which the controversial video was posted, he said, adding that efforts are on to identify the person.