New Delhi: A fake video that travelled across social media has now become a criminal case. Delhi Police have registered an FIR against senior Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan for allegedly sharing a digitally manipulated video of Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.
The case was filed at the Special Cell police station. Cyber patrolling on November 3 led police to a post by the handle @thequotesnews, which claimed the doctored video had been shared from Bhushan's X account.
Police said the video carried misleading and inflammatory content that could spread rumours, defame people and disturb public order. The FIR is registered under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act.
The action follows a fact-check by the Ministry of External Affairs, which had already declared the clip fabricated. The video purported to show Lavrov criticising India over its internal affairs and its oil purchases.
Investigators are now working on the video's content and the route it took across platforms.
The episode sits inside a wider problem. AI-assisted fakes now reach ordinary users as easily as they reach public figures, and content touching foreign policy tends to travel faster than the corrections that follow it.
The legal question is narrower than the noise. A person who did not make a clip can still be liable for sharing it, and the case will turn on what the person sharing it knew. The FIR is a first step, not a finding.
There has been no official response from Bhushan on the case so far.
For the desk, one distinction matters. The video is alleged to be manipulated, the sharing is alleged, and the case is at the FIR stage. Nothing has been established.