NEW DELHI: The promotion of Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Vivek Bhagat, accused of sexually harassing a woman journalist during a protest against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, to the post of Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police has been put on hold. In an order issued on Monday, 12 DANIPS officers, including Bhagat, were promoted as Additional DCPs. Bhagat, a 2018-batch DANIPS officer, is currently posted as the ACP of Connaught Place.
Bhagat wrote to the Delhi Police Commissioner requesting that his current duty charge as Additional DCP be kept on hold, citing a pending Crime Branch enquiry into allegations against him by a YouTuber. Later on Monday night, the Delhi government modified the order.
The government said on X that the proposal was initiated on August 25, much before the present set of events and the orders were issued after approval on October 5. It said Bhagat had requested not to avail the assignment until a full enquiry into the alleged harassment of women journalists was conducted and concluded. The order will be reissued for the remaining 11 officers.
In a related development, a 24-year-old Class X-failed man was arrested for allegedly creating and circulating an AI-generated fabricated video showing an officer sexually assaulting a woman during the protests. The accused, Nadeem Ahmad, a resident of Palwal in Haryana, posed as an independent journalist and posted the video on Sunday.
Additional DCP (New Delhi) Manjeet Sheoran said the district’s social media monitoring unit noticed reels on Instagram and Facebook showing CCTV footage from the protest site. The fabricated footage allegedly showed a policeman misbehaving with a woman and claimed he was a senior Delhi Police officer.
The Cyber Police Station, New Delhi district, registered an FIR. Police traced the handler of Instagram channel “news_aaina0776” to Palwal and arrested Ahmad Monday. His mobile phone was seized. Police said Ahmad allegedly used AI tools to create the footage on October 3.
AI-generated video
In a related development, a man was arrested for allegedly creating and circulating an AI-generated fabricated video showing an officer sexually assaulting a woman during the protests. The accused, Nadeem Ahmad, a resident of Palwal in Haryana, posed as an independent journalist and posted the video on Sunday.