CHANDIGARH: Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Wednesday alleged that the BJP had pressured, intimidated and threatened forensic lab owners to extract confessions that they had accepted money to produce a fake report clearing him in the sacrilege video controversy. “We got the video examined by a forensic lab. All the owners of the forensic lab were attacked by the BJP. They were intimated, tortured or threatened with FIRs to say that they took money to write a fake report,” Mann said in a video message, adding: “Our lab report is fake but is theirs correct? I leave it to the people.” The CM maintained that the viral video, which prompted the Akal Takht on June 15 to declare him “Guru Dokhi” and “Khalsa Panth Virodhi” was fabricated, and that the physical attributes of the person seen in the footage do not match his own. He accused the BJP, SAD and Congress of forming a united front to defame him by weaponising religion.Gurugram FIR and arrests The controversy took a fresh turn Tuesday when Haryana’s Gurugram police registered an FIR and arrested two men — Jind resident Ankit and Sirsa resident Arun Mahendru — on allegations that they prepared fake forensic reports certifying the viral video as AI-generated, at the behest of Punjab government officers. The case was registered at DLF Sector 29 police station on the complaint of Jaspreet, a Sirsa resident who describes himself as a digital forensics expert. According to the FIR, Jaspreet alleged that a person identifying himself as a senior Punjab government officer contacted him and arranged a meeting at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Gurugram, where two officials asked him to procure two independent forensic reports declaring the video AI-generated or digitally altered. He was allegedly offered Rs 10 lakh for the task, and threatened when he initially refused on grounds that available material was insufficient for a reliable opinion. Police said the two reports were prepared under the names of labs, Cyber Yaan and Cipher Sentinel Lab, neither of which had any physical presence. Ankit is a contractual employee with a Delhi government department; Arun works on contract with a Haryana government department and is posted in Panchkula. The FIR invokes sections of the IT Act and BNS, including provisions related to forgery, cheating by personation, and organised crime. AAP fires back at BJP-ruled Haryana AAP Punjab president Aman Arora dismissed the Gurugram action as politically motivated. “Haryana is governed by the BJP, the Haryana Police is under its control, and the entire administration answers to it. They can do whatever they want, initiate any inquiry they choose, and make any allegation they wish,” he said, demanding that Haryana police instead investigate who created, financed and distributed the original video. AAP Punjab leader Baltej Pannu echoed the charge, asserting that the person in the clip is not Mann. “Rather, investigation should have been conducted into who is the actor seen in that video, who is the producer, director and the financier,” he said. Pannu also said the opposition had no development agenda ahead of the 2027 assembly polls and was relying entirely on “fake videos and misinformation.” Two new forensic reports Earlier last week, Punjab finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema had cited two fresh forensic reports from “independent” laboratories outside Punjab, claiming 1,191 frames of the video were analysed and not a single frame matched Mann’s face, height, posture or physical characteristics. “The video was made using an actor to defame the chief minister,” Cheema said, though he declined to name the labs, saying details would remain part of an ongoing investigation. AAP submitted a formal complaint with Punjab DGP Gaurav Yadav demanding a probe into the video’s origins. Mann also reiterated his innocence, saying he had directed the DGP to trace who shot the video, where it was filmed, and who financed it. “Whoever carried out this act should be brought before the Sikh congregation, and then the Guru Nanak-following sangat can decide,” he said. Opposition steps up pressure The opposition was unrelenting. SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal demanded an FIR against Mann and thanked Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini for the Gurugram registration, calling on authorities to take “the strictest possible action.” SAD’s Bikram Singh Majithia accused the AAP government of a “major conspiracy” to challenge the Akal Takht’s findings, and alleged that the forensic expert who filed the Gurugram complaint now feared for his life. He also demanded the resignation of Finance Minister Cheema, alleging the labs cited by AAP did not exist. Congress MP Charanjit Singh Channi demanded Mann’s arrest and resignation. Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring said the CM had lost the moral authority to continue in office. BJP’s Punjab president Kewal Singh Dhillon called the episode “Punjab’s gravest moral and constitutional crisis,” claiming the FIR confirmed that government officials paid Rs 10 lakh to fabricate a forensic report “to deceive the Panth itself.” Dhillon also said Union ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and Ravneet Singh Bittu would not hold meetings with Mann until he is forgiven by the Akal Takht. SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami said Mann had “no moral right” to continue as CM, and announced that the SGPC’s general house would convene on June 27 to mobilise Sikh opinion behind the Akal Takht’s directive. An SGPC member and advocate, Bhagwant Singh Sialka, went further, demanding a constitutional amendment if needed to enable the governor to act in the absence of any existing provision for the situation. Background The controversy dates to January, when the Akal Takht first summoned Mann over a video purportedly showing a man resembling him in objectionable circumstances involving images of Sikh Gurus. Mann appeared before the Akal Takht on January 15 and denied being the person in the clip. The Akal Takht then identified two government-approved forensic labs for examination. On June 15, citing those labs’ findings that the video was neither manipulated nor AI-generated, Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Kuldeep Singh Gargajj declared Mann “Guru Dokhi” and “Panth Virodhi,” directing the Sikh community to sever all social ties with him until he seeks forgiveness. The edict remains in force indefinitely. The controversy has erupted less than a year before Punjab heads to polls in February 2027.
