Congress MP and former Odisha state youth congress president Pradeep Majhi’s purported photograph in Facebook has triggered a controversy in the state.The MP Mr Majhi,has described the photograph published in a local daily and posted in Facebook as “fake, tampered and photo shopped”. Soon after the photograph went public, the MP lodged an FIR at Delhi’s Tughlaq Road police station against the editor of the newspaper which published the photograph and the person who uploaded it in Facebook.
Majhi has alleged that his photograph was published and uploaded in Facebook with an ulterior motive as “part of propaganda to insult, humiliate and defame” him.
Speaking to Media persons, Pradip Majhi said, “One can clearly see that the photograph is morphed. My face is superimposed on a muscular body. Some people have been trying to defame me ever since I contested the polls in 2009. I’ve heard about these photographs from some of my senior colleagues in Congress party in Odisha and some scribes from our state had also alerted me before. As the elections are now drawing nearer, my rivals have again resorted to such reprehensible tactic to defame me”.
It’s not yet ascertained whether the photographs are genuine or false. Recently, minister Rabi Narayan Nanda had lodged a complaint with the cyber cell of Crime Branch after some of his morphed photographs were posted in social networking sites. The Crime Branch arrested one person in connection with the case.
Pradip Majhi’s case is bit different as it has been published in a local newspaper and the identity of the person who posted in Facebook is also known. It remains to be seen how the Delhi Police will proceed with the FIR lodged by the Nowrangpur MP.
<Inputs From OTV>
