New Delhi:

A Delhi court on Monday granted bail to a Congress member arrested in connection with a fake video of Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s speech, noting that he has cooperated in the probe and his further custodial interrogation is not required.

Arun Reddy, who was arrested on May 3, handles the ‘Spirit of Congress’ account on ‘X’, according to officials.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Nabeela Wali noted that the prime allegation against the accused on the basis of which he was arrested was being the ‘Admin’ of the WhatsApp group on which the alleged fake video was first posted for circulation.

However, there are no allegations of the accused having posted/ circulated the said video on any forum, the judge noted.

He noted that the accused was in custody since May 3 and the investigating agency had already taken his police remand.

“Further, the applicant/ accused, as per reply of the investigating officer (IO) has co-operated with the investigating agency and has disclosed the name of his associates/ other investigation. Also, it is an admitted position that no further police custody is required,” the judge said.

The court said that the other suspects in the present case have been granted protection from coercive action by the High Court of Telangana.

“In the opinion of this court, further custodial interrogation of the accused is not required.

“Moreover, it is not the case of the investigating agency that the whereabouts/ details of the other suspects are not known to them.

“It is also submitted that no further recovery is to be effected from the accused and mobile phone of the accused has already been seized and the accused has clean antecedents. Accordingly, the accused Arun Kumar Bereddy is granted bail,” the judge said.

The judge directed the accused to join the investigation as and when required by the IO (investigating officer) and to furnish his mobile phone number to the IO which shall be kept operational at all times so that he can be reached out.

“That accused shall not leave the country without the permission from the Court. The accused shall attend the proceedings either before the I0 or before the court,” the judge said.

The judge further directed the accused not to directly or indirectly make any inducement, threat or promise to any person acquainted with the facts of the case so as to dissuade him from disclosing such facts to the court or to any police officer or tamper with the evidence.

The court had earlier sent Reddy, 37, to judicial custody after the police told that the accused was not required for further interrogation.

The Delhi Police had arrested Reddy on Friday.

The special cell had registered an FIR after the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), which functions under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), filed a complaint about the doctored video of Shah where his statements indicating a commitment to abolish quota for Muslims in Telangana were changed to make it seem that he was advocating scrapping of all reservation.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

In another arrest in the Amit Shah doctored video case, the Delhi Police on Friday took Arun Reddy, the administrator of the ‘Spirit of Congress’ account on X, into custody. 

A police official said Mr Reddy holds the post of the National Coordinator in the Social Media Wing of the Congress in Telangana and had played a role in circulating the edited video, in which the Union Home Minister purportedly says that the BJP would remove reservations for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes.

Officials said Mr Reddy, who was arrested from Delhi, deleted evidence from his phone and the device is now being sent for a forensic investigation. 

Five Congress workers were arrested in the case by the Telangana Police on Thursday based on a complaint by the state unit of the BJP. The arrested workers included the Congress’ Telangana Social Media Convenor. 

Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy has also been summoned by the Delhi Police but had sought four weeks to respond. The Congress leader has attacked the BJP for being vengeful towards him and his lawyer has told the police that he had no hand in creating or posting the doctored video. The lawyer also called the summons misdirected. 

“Your attribution that ‘video tweeted/retweeted by you on your X/ Twitter handle’ is pre-conceived and incorrect. It is categorically stated that my client has nothing to do with the creating, uploading or tweeting/retweeting of the alleged video,” the lawyer told the Delhi police.