#FactCheck -Misleading Social Media Claim Targets University Over Viral Video
Executive Summary
A video circulating on social media shows a woman using abusive language in front of a camera. Users sharing the clip claim that the woman is a professor at Galgotias University and that the video exposes her alleged reality. However, an research by CyberPeace found the claim to be misleading. The probe revealed that the woman seen in the viral video has no connection with Galgotias University and is not a professor there.Fact-checking further showed that the video is not recent but around seven years old. The woman featured in the clip was identified as Shubhrastha, who is a political strategist by profession.
Claim:
A user on X (formerly Twitter) shared the viral video on February 18, 2026, claiming: “A ‘class in abuse studies’ at Galgotias University? An obscene video of a professor teaching ethics has gone viral. Another shameful chapter has been added to the list of controversies surrounding Galgotias University.” The post further alleged that after falsely claiming a Chinese robot as its own, the university’s “Culture and Ethics” faculty member was seen publicly using abusive language in the viral clip. The post link and its archived version are provided below:
Fact Check:
To verify the authenticity of the viral claim, we extracted key frames from the video and conducted a reverse image search using Google Lens. During the research , we found the same video uploaded on the Indian Spectator’s YouTube channel on June 9, 2018
The video was also found on another YouTube channel, where it had been uploaded on June 12, 2018.
Conclusion
The research clearly establishes that the woman seen in the viral video has no association with Galgotias University and is not a professor there. The clip is also not recent but approximately seven years old. The woman in the video was identified as Shubhrastha, a political strategist.
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Introduction
In an extensive order of 144 pages passed on May 29, 2026, Justice Sachin Datta of the Delhi High Court inter alia affirmed the right of an acquitted or discharged person to reinstate their digital identity. In a batch of more than 30 petitions relating to acquittals, family dispute cases, quashed criminal cases, and parties to proceedings, the petitioners argued that court documents and accusations, having lost their purpose, have kept occupying the search engine, leading to infringement of dignity, privacy, and career and personal life of these individuals. Citing Article 21 of the Indian Constitution as its foundation, the court affirmed that a right to life and personal liberty also includes a right to privacy and to leave behind failed proceedings and adopted wide de-indexing policies, including, where necessary, global de-indexing, thereby ushering in India's "right to be forgotten."
The Constitutional Argument: Article 21 and the Digital Self
The constitutional basis of the right to be forgotten in India rests on the landmark nine-judge bench ruling in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India. In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled privacy to be a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution and stated informational privacy is a facet of personal liberty. The Supreme Court observed that individuals have an interest in determining how the information concerning them is gathered, disseminated, and accessed.
Building upon this precedent, Justice Sachin Datta held that the right to be forgotten flows naturally from the constitutional guarantee of informational privacy. The judgment represents one of the most significant judicial applications of the Puttaswamy principles, particularly in the context of search engines and online judicial records. Noting the absence of a fully operational statutory framework despite the enactment of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, the court exercised its constitutional jurisdiction to protect individuals from enduring digital harm caused by continued public accessibility of outdated or irrelevant personal information.
INDIAN APPLICATION OF THE GLOBAL PRECEDENT
Tracing back the genesis of this right, it lies in the worldwide jurisdiction on privacy, especially the European Court of Justice's landmark ruling of 2014 in Google Spain SL v. AEPD and Mario Costeja Gonzlez, where it ruled that it is within one's power to ask search engines to de-list links that show personal information that is found to be outdated or irrelevant. This led to a legislated right to erasure by the inclusion of Article 17 in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), creating the right throughout the EU. India, on the other hand, saw a slow process of evolution when it came to this right. The Madras High Court acknowledged the right to be forgotten partially in 2021 when it directed a petitioner's name to be deleted from an acquittal judgment, which was affirmed by a Division Bench in 2024. Nevertheless, the above were merely judgments confined to the facts of a particular case. However, the decision of the Delhi High Court dated May 2026 proves to be the benchmark in laying down a comprehensive constitutional framework under Article 21 with guiding principles on when a request for de-linking would be entertained and, if warranted, would be extended throughout the world.
Anatomy of the Framework by the Delhi High Court
While Justice Sachin Datta’s ruling recognizes the right to be forgotten, its actual import lies in devising an operative framework. The Court noted that it would maintain judicial records indefinitely in keeping with open justice principles, but an individual's name may not act as a perennial search key with respect to private entities' search engines. Thus, courts will be allowed to de-index judicial records (except their legal reasoning, findings, and ratio decidendi, which will continue to be accessible) from the names appearing therein from search engines and legal databases. While personally identifying data will be obfuscated, the underlying legal reasoning will not be rendered unusable, as access to unredacted records will continue to be available to courts, parties, and authorities. Such orders are also possible to be effective internationally, rendering avoidance difficult. However, the right cannot be absolute, as it is largely unavailable for convicted individuals (particularly if convicted of offenses against women or children or crimes of breach of trust). Courts must pass a proportionality test in considering the balance between privacy and the public right to know. By stating that masking information has an impact on discoverability, not access, it achieves a reconciliation between informational privacy and open justice so that acquitted accused are not held hostage to past accusations forever in the online age.
The Road to Implementation
However, the judgment presents a thick knot of practical issues, the solution to which may take considerable time to untangle. How will petitions for masking orders be filed by those who need them? Will there be a prescribed form? How will legal database systems such as Indian Kanoon and SCC Online operationalize name-based de-indexing while keeping their vast archives usable for lawyers? More significantly, what kind of legal force will global directions for de-indexing hold over those search engines whose main servers lie outside of Indian territory?
This is not to say the judgment isn't important. It simply presents a predictable, almost mundane set of issues that all ambitious pronouncements on constitutional rights face when translated into the world of administration issues that came up even when the EU was first struggling with enforcing the GDPR in 2018. India now has its framework, and the details of its implementation will undoubtedly come through future rounds of litigation, guidelines, and perhaps even legislation.
What remains abundantly clear, though, is the message conveyed by the Delhi High Court that digital permanency is a crime, especially when it causes the most incriminating of a person's legal actions to follow them perpetually, even long after they have been given due process by the system. As Justice Datta eloquently put it, privacy in the digital age is 'not about secrecy but about an individual's control over the dissemination of personal information.' "Now an element of constitutional law in India, the verdict is a declaration that will resonate long beyond the thirty-odd petitions that called it into being.
Conclusion
The ultimate finding of the 2026 right-to-be-forgotten judgment in Delhi High Court reinforces human dignity in the digital era. The Court has acknowledged the need for acquittals and exonerations to have meaningful implications offline, ensuring an individual is not eternally punished through online searches for alleged wrongdoing. Building on the right to privacy established by K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, informational privacy now stands at the core of constitutional guarantees, and India joins the nations establishing precedents to balance openness with dignity.
India is the world's largest democracy, and conducting free and fair elections is a mammoth task shouldered by the Election Commission of India. But technology is transforming every aspect of the electoral process in the digital age, with Artificial Intelligence (AI) being integrated into campaigns, voter engagement, and election monitoring. In the upcoming Bihar elections of 2025, all eyes are on how the use of AI will influence the state polls and the precedent it will set for future elections.
Opportunities: Harnessing AI for Better Elections
Breaking Language Barriers with AI:
AI is reshaping political outreach by making speeches accessible in multiple languages. At the Kashi Tamil Sangamam in 2024, the PM’s Hindi address was AI-dubbed in Tamil in real time. Since then, several speeches have been rolled out in eight languages, ensuring inclusivity and connecting with voters beyond Hindi-speaking regions more effectively.
Monitoring and Transparency
During Bihar’s Panchayat polls, the State Election Commission used Staqu’s JARVIS, an AI-powered system that connects with CCTV cameras to monitor EVM screens in real time. By reducing human error, JARVIS brought greater accuracy, speed, and trust to the counting process.
AI for Information Access on Public Service Delivery
NaMo AI is a multilingual chatbot that citizens can use to inquire about the details of public services. The feature aims to make government schemes easy to understand, transparent, and help voters connect directly with the policies of the government.
Personalised Campaigning
AI is transforming how campaigns connect with voters. By analysing demographics and social media activity, AI builds detailed voter profiles. This helps craft messages that feel personal, whether on WhatsApp, a robocall, or a social media post, ensuring each group hears what matters most to them. This aims to make political outreach sharper and more effective.
Challenges: The Dark Side of AI in Elections
Deepfakes and Disinformation
AI-powered deepfakes create hyper-realistic videos and audio that are nearly impossible to distinguish from the real. In elections, they can distort public perception, damage reputations, or fuel disharmony on social media. There is a need for mandatory disclaimers stating when content is AI-generated, to ensure transparency and protect voters from manipulative misinformation.
Data Privacy and Behavioural Manipulation
Cambridge Analytica’s consulting services, provided by harvesting the data of millions of users from Facebook without their consent, revealed how personal data can be weaponised in politics. This data was allegedly used to “microtarget” users through ads, which could influence their political opinions. Data mining of this nature can be supercharged through AI models, jeopardising user privacy, trust, safety, and casting a shadow on democratic processes worldwide.
Algorithmic Bias
AI systems are trained on datasets. If the datasets contain biases, AI-driven tools could unintentionally reinforce stereotypes or favor certain groups, leading to unfair outcomes in campaigning or voter engagement.
The Road Ahead: Striking a Balance
The adoption of AI in elections opens a Pandora's box of uncertainties. On the one hand, it offers solutions for breaking language barriers and promoting inclusivity. On the other hand, it opens the door to manipulation and privacy violations.
To counter risks from deepfakes and synthetic content, political parties are now advised to clearly label AI-generated materials and add disclaimers in their campaign messaging. In Delhi, a nodal officer has even been appointed to monitor social media misuse, including the circulation of deepfake videos during elections. The Election Commission of India constantly has to keep up with trends and tactics used by political parties to ensure that elections remain free and fair.
Conclusion
With Bihar’s pioneering experiments with JARVIS in Panchayat elections to give vote counting more accuracy and speed, India is witnessing both sides of this technological revolution. The challenge lies in ensuring that AI strengthens democracy rather than undermining it. Deepfakes algorithms, bias, and data misuse remind us of the risk of when technology oversteps. The real challenge is to strike the right balance in embracing AI for elections to enhance inclusivity and transparency, while safeguarding trust, privacy, and the integrity of democratic processes.
References
- https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/how-ai-is-rewriting-the-rules-of-election-campaign-in-india/articleshow/120848499.cms#
- https://m.economictimes.com/news/elections/lok-sabha/india/2024-polls-stand-out-for-use-of-ai-to-bridge-language-barriers/articleshow/108737700.cms
- https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/namo-ai-on-namo-app-a-unique-chatbot-that-will-answer-everything-on-pm-modi-govt-schemes-achievements-5426028
- https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/gadgets-news/staqu-deploys-jarvis-to-facilitate-automated-vote-counting-for-bihar-panchayat-polls/articleshow/87307475.cms
- https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-editorials/deepfakes-in-elections-challenges-and-mitigation
- https://internetpolicy.mit.edu/blog-2018-fb-cambridgeanalytica/
- https://www.deccanherald.com/elections/delhi/delhi-assembly-elections-2025-use-ai-transparently-eci-issues-guidelines-for-political-parties-3357978#
Executive Summary
A video is being widely shared on social media with the claim that a youth was killed in police firing in Bihar’s Siwan. The viral 1-minute-22-second video shows a young man standing with a stick in his hand. Moments later, gunfire is heard, after which he appears to be injured and collapses. His associates are then seen carrying him away from the spot. CyberPeace Research Wing’s research found that the claim is false. The research revealed that the viral video is not from Bihar’s Siwan but dates back to the student protests in Bangladesh in July 2024.
Claim:
The video was shared on X with a caption claiming that it shows a police firing incident in Bihar’s Siwan, where a student was allegedly killed after police opened fire with AK-47 rifles.
The caption stated, “This video is going viral on social media. It is being claimed that this video is from Siwan, Bihar, where police fired AK-47s at students. During the firing, a youth was hit by two bullets and died.”
https://x.com/Deshmukh_0/status/2082053481993740701
Fact Check:
To verify the authenticity of the viral claim, we extracted keyframes from the video and conducted a reverse image search. During the research, we found a longer version of the same video uploaded on the YouTube channel of a Bangladeshi news portal on July 16, 2024.
According to the video description, the footage shows the death of student Abu Sayed during protests in Rangpur, Bangladesh, on July 16, 2024.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuf7H0MNIaI
Further research led us to a report published by bdnews24, which also carried visuals matching those seen in the viral video. The report stated that on July 16, 2024, Abu Sayed, an English Department student at Begum Rokeya University in Rangpur, Bangladesh, died after being shot during the protests.
https://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/87ef7e69c496#google_vignette
Conclusion:
The evidence gathered during the research confirms that the viral video claiming to show a youth being killed in police firing in Bihar’s Siwan is misleading. The video is actually from Bangladesh and shows the death of student Abu Sayed during the July 2024 protests in Rangpur. The old footage is being shared with a false claim linking it to a recent incident in Bihar.
