New Delhi: The Punjab Police has written to social media platforms seeking the removal of nearly 150 links and more than 50 AI-generated videos in connection with the protest and subsequent violence at Lovely Professional University (LPU) in Punjab’s Phagwara, ThePrint has learnt. Officials said moves to contain such AI-altered videos have been taken to contain a flurry of videos showing a “non-existent” situation on the ground and “facts” of the investigation.
One such flagged video, with a quarter of a million views on X, shows a police officer in uniform confirming an alleged rape in LPU campus. The post has now been withheld.
According to established procedure, local units or district police in the state have to write to the state’s cyber department, which serves as a nodal agency for communication between social media intermediaries such as X and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and the police.
One example of how reality is being distorted by such videos comes from the police deployment on the LPU campus in Kapurthala’s Phagwara sub-division. “Our team was deployed at the entrance of this block, and we were conducting patrolling to maintain law and order,” the officer said.
“A few minutes later, a video emerged on social media suggesting that miscreants had been roaming in the area with weapons and inflammable substances. This was an unbelievable use of videos with unrelated information that may have resulted in more disturbances on the ground,” the officer said.
Meanwhile, the police have also stepped up the probe to trace the identity of the woman student alleged to have been raped in the LPU campus by a university staff member. Police sources said that surveillance footage has been examined, and students living in the rooms alleged to be place of the offence have been questioned. They admitted that neither the alleged offence, victim, or accused has been identified so far.
Meanwhile, the officers maintain that a separate probe has been launched to ascertain the origin and circumstances of the violence in the university campus on Sunday evening that left at least policemen injured and half a dozen police vehicles torched. Preliminary investigation conducted so far has revealed the roles of college students along with alumni of the university living in the same neighbourhood in the violence.
“All of those perpetrators of violence will be identified and prosecuted under appropriate sections of the law. Lawlessness will not be spared in the name of grievances,” a senior police officer said.
This is an updated version of the report
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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