Police couldn’t track original video, to charge accused for adding ‘obscene’ audio track

Members of Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena however said that the original video was available but the police were not interested in probing it as it would show that the video was not tampered with.  An officer said, “The chargesheet in the case is ready and we are just going through it once more.”

The officer said that as far as their probe was concerned, the “criminal aspect” was adding an ‘obscene’ audio track to the video and circulating it widely.

An IPS officer told The Indian Express, “We have sent that video to the state Forensic Science Laboratory in Kalina to get a report confirming that the audio track was added.” When asked about the video footage being edited, the officer said, “We did not manage to get the original video and hence we cannot comment on that. However, the obscene audio track being added to the video is confirmed and we will be charging the accused accordingly.”

While during the state assembly session, it was announced that the case will be probed by a Special Investigation Team headed by an IPS officer, it was eventually investigated by the local Dahisar police station, the officer said. During the course of the investigation, the police arrested at least eight persons in the case. As per an officer, all the eight accused were eventually released on bail.

The incident in question took place in the first week of March when the said video was widely shared on social media handles. Later, based on the former corporator’s statement, the Dahisar police had registered an FIR under sections 354 (sexual harassment), 509 (outraging modesty), 500 (defamation) and 34 (common intention) of the IPC and Section 67 (publishing obscene material in electronic form) of the IT Act.

Soon after registering the FIR, the police arrested two persons on March 12. Later the police arrested Vinayak Davre, who handles the Facebook account of Matoshree – linked to Thack-eray’s party, as the video was allegedly shared from that handle as well. The police had later also arrested Sainath Durge, a close aide of Aaditya Thackeray, in connection with the case.  The corporator had blamed Thackeray’s party people for maligning the image of a woman by sharing such morphed videos online.