Actor Sahil Khan among 7 booked for circulating morphed photos of rival’s family

“The complainant, Manish Gandhi, claimed that Khan, his business partners and other associates were cyberbullying him for the past few years and recently, the group had started putting up obscene and hateful content against his family members, including morphed, distorted images of his teenage son and daughter on social media,” said an officer from Amboli police station

Mumbai: Actor and fitness influencer Sahil Khan and six others were booked on Saturday for allegedly maligning the image of one of his business rivals’ family on social media.

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“The complainant, Manish Gandhi, claimed that Khan, his business partners and other associates were cyberbullying him for the past few years and recently, the group had started putting up obscene and hateful content against his family members, including morphed, distorted images of his teenage son and daughter on social media,” said an officer from Amboli police station.

“Other than this, they have also fabricated news stories with reports which were made on Photoshop saying I was accused of rape and molestation. They also made up an FIR claiming on social media that a rape case was registered against me,” said Gandhi to the police.

All the seven accused have been booked under sections 500 (defamation), 506 (criminal intimidation ), 504 (insulting someone intentionally to provoke them), 228-A (print or publish matter that makes the identity of a person accused of rape or molestation public) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Information Technology Act.

This is not the first such complaint that the Gandhi family had filed against the actor. In April, an FIR was registered against Khan and his female friend for allegedly using derogatory language against Gandhi’s wife when they bumped into each other at a gym. In that complaint, Gandhi’s wife had mentioned that the influencer had also threatened to harm her children.

Khan has also made similar complaints against Gandhi in the past.

Khan, who is known for his role in “Style” and its sequel “Xcuse Me,” is no stranger to controversies. His name has been featured in several police cases before. In 2021, he was booked for defaming and harassing former Mr India contestant Manoj Patil who later tried to die by suicide over it. He has also been accused of cheating another rival in the fitness industry, Ayesha Shroff.