New Delhi: After a three-month-long investigation, a 23-year-old ‘fan’ who allegedly created and first uploaded a deepfake video of actor Rashmika Mandanna on social media has been tracked to Andhra Pradesh by Delhi Police’s Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Opsunit, reports Rajshekhar Jha.

According to special commissioner R P Upadhyay, Eemani Naveen, a BTech graduate with expertise in picture and video editing, operated fan pages of three film stars, including Mandanna, and committed the act allegedly to boost count of the followers.

Naveen hadn’t expected the severe backlash and nationwide outrage, including tweets calling for action from actors like Amitabh Bachchan, and so deleted the video and changed the page name. By then, however, it had gone viral.