Gujarat Forensic Lab doesn't have hashing algorithm to "detect" morphed images: Sanjeev Bhatt sex video takes new turn

Original: Obama and Michelle; morphed: with Modi

By Munir Ahmed
Facts have come to light with strong suggestions that the Gujarat Forensic Science Laboratory is “ill-equipped” to authenticate the sex-video, cited by the state government to issue show-cause notice on suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt on the charge of moral turpitude.
The state home department had issued a show cause notice on Bhatt, seeking an explanation within 10 days for allegedly having a “relationship with a woman other than his wife”.
A 1988 batch IPS officer, Bhatt had filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court, claiming that he had attended a meeting on February 27, 2002 at Narendra Modi’s residence in Gandhinagar, where he claimed the then chief minister told his officers to “allow Hindus to vent their anger”.
The Gujarat government has claimed that it has received a pen drive containing a 11-minute video clip showing Bhatt with a woman. Bhatt has said that the man seen in the video clip was not him but someone with general resemblance. “I am prepared to face a thorough bio-metric test to prove this,” he has insisted.
The show-cause notice claimed that the forensic science laboratory at Gandhinagar had “confirmed” the authenticity of the video clip and that it had not been tampered with. It is a different matter that the laboratory does not have the requisite hashing algorithm that can detect tampering.
Ironically, the requisite hashing algorithm has been developed by additional director general of police VK Mall after five-years of research, which the state government could have used to verify the authenticity of the video. On Wednesday Mall presented his algorithm model before a jury of academics at the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information Technology, Gandhinagar, while defending his thesis for doctoral degree. The jury passed his thesis with flying colours.
“Easy availability of user-friendly image editing software has made modification of digital images a popular child’s play”, Mall is learnt to have told the jury, adding, “Malicious tampering of digital images has serious ramification in legal documents, copyright issues, photo journalism, celebrities’ lifestyle, fashion statements, beauty and fitness products, entertainment sector, medical science, biometric images and forensic cases.”

Critics point towards how supporters of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Modi and paid IT professionals” morphed and edited digital images using photo editing software and circulated them widely in social media In the last Lok Sabha elections. Some of these ‘photo-shopped’ images and videos were aimed at tarnishing the images of Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.
Morphed images ahead of the rolls included Modi walking with Barack Obama in the corridors of White House,  and Modi's image tattooed on a young girl's back.
The Gujarat Forensic Science Laboratory not having requisite hashing algorithm for detecting fake images has come to light amidst UP’s suspended IPS officer Amitabh Thakur declared, in a a letter to the Gujarat government, that even if Bhatt was in the video, it could not be held as a misconduct. Only his family had the right to object.
"In this case, sadly it seems the privacy of Bhatt has been pierced into and publicly divulged which does not seem appropriate, legally and ethically," Thakur said in his letter he has sent to Gujarat home secretary PK Taneja.
"Take strict legal and administrative action against every person who has infringed the right to privacy owned by Sanjiv Bhatt and has unnecessarily brought a private matter into public realm, bringing Bhatt, his family members and the concerned woman, unnecessarily and improperly in precarious position," the letter says.
Citing Rule 20 of the All India Services Conduct Rules, 1968, under which the notice has been issued, Thakur says, it only “prohibits is public drinking, heavy use of drugs, being intoxicated in public....what a person does as regards having physical relationship with another person is definitely his personal affair, as long as it does not flout the law of the land."