India

Delhi Police Arrest 24-Year-Old for AI-Generated Fake Poster Allegedly Depicting Police Sexual Assault

By Kanchan Yadav

Delhi Police on Tuesday announced that 24‑year‑old Nadeem Ahmed was arrested for allegedly creating and circulating an AI‑generated fake poster that falsely showed a police officer sexually assaulting a woman during a protest. According to the police, Ahmed admitted during questioning that he used AI tools to produce the videos. He claimed to be an independent journalist and had been running an Instagram account since April, which had about 24,000 followers and 1,226 posts. Police said that on 3 October a video circulated on social media, presented as CCTV footage from the protest site, showing a police uniformed individual misbehaving with a woman. When examined, the police identified Ahmed, who is from Palwal, Haryana, as running the channel. He told investigators that he had studied only up to class 10 in a madrasa in Saket, Delhi, and that he had failed the exam. He further explained that he used AI tools to create such videos with the intention of tarnishing the image of the police and turning protesters against them. The police seized his phone for forensic analysis and will keep him in remand for further questioning. Investigators are also looking into whether others were involved in the alleged conspiracy. Ahmed was produced before a court on Monday, which granted police custody for further investigation. The arrest comes amid a separate controversy involving an assistant commissioner of police accused of sexually harassing a woman journalist during a protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The ACP, Vivek Bhagat, was promoted to additional deputy commissioner on Monday but the order assigning him additional charge was withdrawn on Tuesday after he requested not to take charge until a full inquiry was conducted. The government said Bhagat requested this “of his own volition” pending a satisfactory conclusion of the alleged harassment inquiry. Earlier, the CJP spokesperson Saurav Das had accused Delhi Police of refusing to register an FIR against an additional DCP over an alleged assault on an independent journalist and demanded action against the officer. Complaints by three women journalists alleging harassment by police personnel have also triggered protests and demands for action.