Chandigarh: Politics over purported AI-generated movies of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann heated up in Punjab Thursday, with the BJP questioning the affiliation between Mann and Jagmandeep Samra, a Canada-based Indian man accused of making and circulating the movies. 

Whereas BJP spokesperson Vineet Joshi stated the CM’s full silence on the movies was “deafening”, AAP focused the BJP for stooping to “character assassination” of Mann after having did not pin him down over anything. Joshi additionally insisted that the CM ought to make clear “that he doesn’t know Samra, has by no means travelled with him, nor has Samra ever organised his international excursions”.

The movies purportedly present the Punjab CM with some ladies in a room. The Punjab Police, lodging an FIR towards Samra, dismissed the matter as nothing greater than an try by a disgruntled miscreant, as soon as recognized to the CM, to malign the latter’s picture.

However the controversy has shone the highlight on a curious determine. This isn’t the primary time that the accused, Jagmandeep Singh Samra alias Jugnu, a resident of Canada, has made headlines. In 2020, he was booked in two circumstances of immigration fraud. Two years later, he escaped from a hospital the place he was present process remedy whereas in jail. In November 2023, he cropped up within the notorious ‘Tomar tapes’ controversy. 

Apparently, Samra himself talks about all of the allegations towards him in a string of YouTube movies that he frequently places out.

So who’s Jagamandeep Karma? ThePrint finds out:

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‘Tomar tapes’, hashish farmer with hundreds of followers

In accordance with his social web page, Samra is a blueberry and hashish farmer in Canada. He claims to have additionally launched the “Khalas coin”, a crypto forex. A number of posts on his Fb relate to bulletins concerning the forex.

The Indian-origin man first put out the Mann video on two Fb pages in his identify—every with over 30,000 followers—and his private and enterprise Instagram accounts with over 20,000 followers. He even claims he can pay 1,000,000 {dollars} to anybody who proves these movies will not be genuine however AI-generated.

Samra has additionally declared on his social media movies that these clips are “only a trailer” and he has eight such movies that he’ll launch within the coming days. Furthermore, he alleges he has comparable movies of different senior AAP leaders.

Reacting to the FIR towards him, Samra wrote on his Fb web page Tuesday that he was “least bothered” about it, including that even when “the federal government shut down” his Fb pages, he had different means of creating the movies public.

Samra first made the information in November 2023 after the discharge of the notorious ‘Tomar tapes’ the place his purported conversations with former Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar’s son Devendra Tomar a few monetary deal went viral. Samra had claimed that Tomar junior was speaking to him about parking their wealth in Canadian banks.

The ‘Tomar tapes’ had change into a political scorching potato forward of the Madhya Pradesh meeting polls that 12 months, with the state Congress calling it “the most important corruption scandal involving a BJP central minister”. The then Union minister had then referred to as the tapes faux, and a political conspiracy towards him.

नरेंद्र सिंह तोमर के बेटे देवेंद्र तोमर के करोड़ों का लेनदेन करते वायरल वीडियो मामले में नया खुलासा हुआ है। वीडियो कॉल पर मंत्री पुत्र से बात कर रहे शख़्स ने नया वीडियो जारी कर पूरी बातचीत की पुष्टि की है।

यह पूरा मामला 100 या 500 करोड़ का नहीं बल्कि 10000 करोड़ का होना बताया जा… pic.twitter.com/OdBVoot6bR

— MP Congress (@INCMP) November 14, 2023

In accordance with senior law enforcement officials investigating the most recent case towards him, in 2020, two circumstances of immigration fraud had been registered towards Samra in Faridkot and Bathinda. 

Samra was arrested within the Faridkot case. In accordance with the police, he was denied bail on this case in September 2021. The courtroom order, accessed by ThePrint, states that Samra had allegedly cheated a Ferozepur resident of Rs 65 lakh. The complainant stated he paid the cash to Samra by an immigration company in Jalandhar to get his household a visa for Canada.

In June 2022, Samra managed to flee whereas he was admitted to a Faridkot hospital, and has been on the run ever since.

It isn’t clear how he managed to succeed in Canada, police sources stated, although one other FIR was registered towards him for evading arrest. “All we all know is that he first went to Delhi after which to Nepal from the place he went to Canada,” stated a senior police officer.

In one in all his movies posted Tuesday, Samra even referred to his escape, saying he gained’t be deterred by an FIR towards him. He posted a duplicate of the FIR lodged over his escape, as properly.

In accordance with the police, Samra was declared a proclaimed offender by a courtroom in January 2023, and a Look Out Round was issued towards him in March 2023. 

Peeved with Mann

In an interview with a neighborhood YouTube channel in November 2023, Samra claimed his grandfather was a “well-known freedom fighter from Punjab”. On his Fb web page, he claims he has a Grasp’s diploma in English Literature from Ranbir School, Sangrur. 

He even claimed to have as soon as protested outdoors the Parliament in Ottawa as he was upset {that a} Jalandhar-based physician who needed to go to Canada for remedy for drug habit was denied a visa, however Bhagwant Mann, who was a comic on the time, was granted one for an leisure present. 

Final 12 months, Samra claims he was actively engaged with a Patiala-based NGO, Kisan Mazdoor Cooperative Worldwide (KMCI) that launched a drive to rent younger folks to coach farmers in Punjab to create their very own model of natural farm merchandise. Nevertheless, the NGO had held a press convention final 12 months stating that Samra had supplied to take a position a number of crores within the undertaking like different NRIs, however as soon as these youth and farmers began becoming a member of their motion, Samra began utilizing the official web site of the KCMI to promote his crypto forex to them. 

Political slugfest continues

At a press convention Thursday, BJP spokesperson Vineet Joshi stated the folks of Punjab have the fitting to know if the Mann movies are faux and if the CM is aware of the accused. 

Mann’s media adviser Baltej Pannu addressed one other press convention, alleging that Punjab BJP president Ashwani Sharma and outstanding supporters of the occasion had been spreading these faux movies. 

“These movies have been declared as faux by the courtroom which has ordered that these be instantly taken down from social media inside 24 hours,” stated Pannu. The Punjab cyber cell had approached the district courtroom in Mohali for permission to take down the Fb and Instagram pages of the accused. “The courtroom has clearly stated that wherever these movies have been shared also needs to be taken down,” Pannu added. 

Chatting with ThePrint Pannu stated: “The CM has made it clear that the movies are faux and that is sufficient to silence these asking these questions.”

Earlier within the day, state BJP chief Sharma had posted a screenshot of the video on X, saying: “An individual who holds a press convention over trivial issues has not spoken out over this. Why are you so quiet Bhagwant Mann ji.”

ਜਿਹੜਾ ਬੰਦਾ ਹਰ ਛੋਟੀ ਗੱਲ ‘ਤੇ ਪ੍ਰੈਸ ਕਾਨਫਰੰਸ ਕਰਦਾ ਸੀ,
ਉਹ ਆਪਣੀ ਕਥਿਤ ਵੀਡੀਓ ‘ਤੇ ਇੰਨਾ ਚੁੱਪ ਕਿਉਂ ਹੈ?
ਪੰਜਾਬ ਨੂੰ ਜਵਾਬ ਚਾਹੀਦਾ ਹੈ, @BhagwantMann ਸਾਹਿਬ, ਸਪੱਸ਼ਟੀਕਰਨ ਦਿੱਤਾ ਜਾਵੇ #BhagwantMann #AAPPunjab pic.twitter.com/r60nIzmbzH

— Ashwani Sharma (मोदी का परिवार) (@AshwaniSBJP) October 23, 2025

Addressing yet one more press convention, AAP MP Malwinder Kang listed out a number of social media accounts of BJP leaders and supporters saying they’d shared the video. “Many of those individuals are those that are adopted by the Prime Minister. The BJP is attempting its finest to nook the CM over faux movies because it has not been capable of finding a single fault within the functioning of the chief minister ever because the Aam Aadmi Occasion got here to energy virtually 4 years in the past,” stated Kang. 

(Edited by Gitanjali Das)

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