3 years after 2 men booked over morphed photos of Modi & Shah, cops say no proof

Police had acted on a complaint by a lawyer, who had alleged in April 2020 that he saw objectionable posts on a Facebook group called Modi Mission 2024. An FIR was lodged on September 27 that year.

Last month, police approached the Ghaziabad district and sessions court to submit the closure report. The next hearing is on January 15.

According to sources, the probe led police to conclude that the objectionable photos had been posted from “fake Facebook IDs” made in the name of the two men. As the posts went viral, the Facebook accounts were deleted. Afterwards, police set out to look for the real accused, but their efforts yielded no results.

Simultaneously, the complainant’s lawyer approached police multiple times and also wrote to the Prime Minister’s Office, it is learnt. The 80-page closure report also details the correspondence between various officials.

In a letter sent in November 2020, the head of the UP Police cyber cell wrote to the investigating team, stating: “It is to be informed that the application given to Facebook for providing information about the accused’s Facebook account has been rejected.”

Requests were also made to Facebook under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties, but in vain. Information sought by the probe team included IP addresses, network carrier names and phone numbers of the accused.

The closure report also states that no further arrests or detentions were made in the case.

An investigating officer told The Indian Express, “Our enquiry revealed that fake IDs had been used to share the posts. We couldn’t trace the creator or the persons who shared the photos since the IP addresses used to operate the Facebook accounts were not shared with us.”

Police, in their closure report, mentioned “it is not possible to trace the accused” as Facebook didn’t “respond” to their requests.

Asked about the probe and the closure report, Ghaziabad Police Commissioner Ajay Mishra refused to comment, saying he doesn’t have the case details.