Mumbai police to probe use of bot army to discredit investigation in Sushant Singh Rajput’s death

The use of army of bots on social media to gain traction is not very uncommon.  But, a full-fledged force of over 80,000 fake accounts was used to discredit and malign Mumbai police which was investigating into the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput.

The revelation was made by none other than the top cop of Mumbai police himself. Param Bir Singh, Mumbai police commissioner has instructed the cyber cell to probe the matter and register cases under the Information Technology Act.

A report made after an initial probe by the cyber cell shows that agenda-driven posts were uploaded on social media platforms from different countries like Italy, Japan, Poland, Slovenia, Indonesia, Turkey, Thailand, Romania and France.

Explaining how the bot army was used to malign Mumbai police image, an officer said thousands of post were originating from foreign countries in foreign languages using hashtags like #justiceforsushant #sushantsinghrajput and #SSR. These post were trying to discredit Mumbai police investigation and circulate a conspiracy theory.

Mumbai police, which has done initial mapping and is now trying to verify the users behind it.

“The campaign was run against Mumbai police just to demoralise us at a time when 84 policemen had died due to the pandemic and over 6,000 men were infected with the virus. This was a motivated campaign with vested interest just to malign the image of Mumbai police and derail our line of investigation. Multiple fake accounts on social media were created to target Mumbai police with abusive tones. Our cyber cell is conducting a thorough investigation into this matter and all those found violating the law will be prosecuted under relevant sections of the Information Technology Act,” said Param Bir Singh, Mumbai police commissioner to Hindustan Times.

Automated bots are regularly used to inflate traffic surrounding hashtags, a practice commonly used to gain more traction on Twitter’s trending topics.  In most of the cases, these accounts originate in foreign countries which randomly starts posting messages instructed to them. Social media giant claims that they have are trying to prevent such malicious campaigns but bots continue to remain the reality of social networking sites.

Soon after the death of Sushant Singh Rajput people started demanding CBI probe in the matter as new fact and characters came to light each day. Several social media campaign were also started seeking justice which was joined by Bollywood actors and other celebrities.  However, if the claim of Mumbai police is right then the role of bots in populating these hashtags cannot be denied.

The case is now being investigated by CBI.