Gurgaon: A day after making two arrests and starting a probe into allegations that Punjab govt officials got fake forensic reports made for a controversial video allegedly featuring CM Bhagwant Mann, Gurgaon police sources said they had retrieved CCTV footage that backed the complainant’s claim about a meeting at Crowne Plaza hotel in the city where he was commissioned the job. The sources said the meeting took place in a room at the hotel.“The time of the meeting mentioned in the complaint has also matched. We are using facial recognition technology to ascertain who was present there,” a source said.According to complainant Jaspreet, who identifies himself as a digital forensic expert, he received a call from a person claiming to be “a senior Punjab govt officer”, who sought a meeting with him at Crowne Plaza. There, Jaspreet alleged, two Punjab govt officers met him and asked him to arrange two independent forensic reports stating that the video linked to the Punjab CM was AI-generated, digitally altered or fake.The two who made these reports were arrested on Tuesday. A local court has granted police eight days’ remand for further investigation.Police said they have seized digital evidence from the accused and sent it for forensic analysis. The lab reports in question from Cyber Yaan and Cipher Sentinel — labs that police claim have no physical ground operations — claimed that the video that the photo of the CM provided from a public source did not match the height, build, posture and skin tone of the person in the video, not did it throw up a facial recognition match.Even as Mann, who claims the video is fake, accused Haryana cops of using coercion to build a case, Gurgaon police commissioner Sibash Kabiraj said the investigation relied on “irrefutable, scientific, and objective digital evidence”, including verified CCTV footage.“Gurgaon police emphasises that the probe is entirely protocol-driven and free from human bias, aiming to establish a clear, tamper-proof sequence of events,” he said.
