Masquerade of Motives: Unmasking the Babydoll Archi Deepfake and India’s Legal Void

“With boon, there always comes a bane.” 

Today in the world any person can get viral on social media by either singing, making videos, vlogging their personal lives, dancing and a lot of times by not even doing anything. In July, 2025 almost every other person in India was trying to find out who is Babydoll Archi(hereafter referred to as Archi).She had become an internet sensation overnight by uploading a transformation video as a reel in a red saree on the spanish song Dame Un Grrr sung by Romanian musicians, which she uploaded on her Instagram account, captivated the attention of social media users. Archi’s instagram handle mostly contained erotic and pornographic photos and videos. Furthemore when she uploaded a photo of her with American Adult Star Kendra her Instagram account with 80,000 followers reached 1.4 million very quickly. People started speculating that Archi may soon join the Hollywood Adult Film Industry after seeing this photo on social media. Later people found out that her real name is Archita Phukan and she is from Assam. She was previously a part of prostitution ring at GB road for six years and had paid 25 lakhs to get out of the prostitution racket. 

But there is a twist. Many social media users from the start were suspicious about the appearance of Archi because her expressions and gestures didn't look natural at all and people claimed that it was an Artificial Intelligence(AI) generated digital illusion. The truth came out after the brother of a married homemaker from Assam’s Dibrugarh district claimed that the identity of this famous influencer was fake and in reality the person behind the creation of this AI avatar had stolen his sister’s identity without her consent. His sister had no idea of her appearance being used as a tool to create a deepfake persona on social media. The women’s family filed a police complaint and a man named Pritam Bora(hereafter referred as Bora),previously a mechanical engineer was arrested for creating the AI avatar of Archi(which turned out be fake) on social media. The police reported that Bora had a personal vendetta behind all this. He wanted to take revenge and the entire scheme was planned to intentionally humiliate and mentally distress his ex girlfriend(The women whose identity was misused to create Archi) after their relationship came to an end. The Senior Superintendent of Police Sizal Aggarwal who was investigating this case reported that Bora used tools such as ChatGPT and Dzine to create the AI avatar which means that he was well versed with using AI tools since he was a mechanical engineer. Archi was first created in 2020 and her first upload was made in May 2021.The initial posts were her real pictures that had been morphed. As the time passed the content evolved from slightly edited to fully AI generated deepfake videos and photos which contained pornographic elements and none of this was a real person. 

The police demanded information from Meta, the parent company of Instagram about Archi’s account and that is how Bora was traced and arrested. The case was registered against Bora at Dibrugarh Police Station, invoking Sections: 

1. Section 336(4)-Forgery of Valuable Security and Will or other significant documents

2. Section 356(2)-Defamation 

3. Section 74-Assault or Criminal Force to Woman with Intent to Outrage Her Modesty

4. Section 75-Sexual Harassment and Punishment for Sexual Harassment

5. Section 294-The Exploitation of Children, specifically Hiring, Employing, or Engaging a child (under 18 years) to commit a criminal offense. 

6. Section 351(2)-Punishment for the Offence of Criminal Intimidation of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita,2023(hereafter referred to as BNS). 

   
   

The total money Bora had earned from this crime was estimated to be 10 lakhs including 3 lakh in just five days. The content had more than 3000 subscriptions on Linktree. Meta has now removed the account from Instagram but the videos and photos of Archi are still visible on different Instagram handles. 

Deepfake is a technology in which the image, video or voice of a person feels real but in reality it is fabricated through the use of AI. In this case Bora used the Deepfake technology without any regard for the dignity and privacy of his ex-girlfriend, whose identity he used to commit the crime. The loophole here is that till date no Indian law clearly defines or criminalises Deepfake. Even though Deepfake helps in areas of education, awareness and law enforcement like helping lawyers and judges, at the same time it leads to misuse, disinformation and high risk of cybercrime. One challenge is about imposing criminal liability as the perpetrator(here Bora)act with full anonymity on the internet by using Virtual Private Network(VPNs),fake profiles(like Babydoll Archi) and darkweb. By the time the police tries to find out the criminal the creator of the Deepfake video will be lost as already a lot of social media users will have reposted it. Another challenge is how authentic the evidence presented in the court will be as the inaccuracy of a deepfake has to be proved before the court which requires forensic experts to examine it, but the Deepfake technology today is so advanced that even a forensic expert will have a hard time differentiating between a real and a fake one. Research has shown that almost the majority of online deepfakes are pornographic in nature, often featuring women who never consented to appearing in these videos. Under BNS Deepfake is treated as a form of forgery and defamation. BNS under Section 336 criminalizes forgery and Section 336(4) covers forgery intended to harm a person’s reputation. In this case, digitally manipulating the woman's face into an explicit footage could be interpreted as creating a forged document (the video)planned to damage her reputation. Section 356 applies if the deepfake content is interpreted as false revelations harming her character. On 7 November 2023, the Union issued an advisory to social media intermediaries (hereafter referred to as SMI)like Facebook and Instagram to ensure that Due Diligence has to be exercised and reasonable efforts have to be made to identify misinformation and deepfakes and information that violates the provisions of rules and regulations and user agreements. SMI users are also directed not to host such content (including deepfaked content)and any such content, when reported, has to be removed within 36 hours of the report which otherwise would attract Rule 7 of the Information Technology Rules (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics) Code, 2021.A detailed analysis reveals that India does not completely address the arising problems caused by Deepfake. Deepfakes are easily able to manipulate public opinion and are a threat to authenticity in the digital world. Strong legislation with proper punishment for crime related to Deepfake needs to be established so as to protect the citizens from harm caused by this technology. 

¹ Anandi Nain,a Third year/Fifth semester student of BA LLB at IIULER,Goa

References 

1. Ayushman Kumar B., Illusions of Identity: Legislative Challenges Revolving Around Deepfake Technology, (Aug. 6, 2025),https://www.lawctopus.com/academike/illusions-of-identity-legislative-challenges-rev olving-around-deepfake-technology/ 

2. Akash Banerjee,India's Dangerous Love Affair With Babydoll Archi | Story That Rocked The Internet (YouTube,31st July,2025,https://youtu.be/F70YnMypkEA.

3. Deepfake Deception: Indian Woman's Identity Stolen for Erotic AI Content,BBC News (n.d.), https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0znk47x9eo. 

4. Pihu Yadav, Babydoll Archi Is 2025’s Revenge Porn and She Never Even Existed, CNBC TV18 (July 23, 2025), https://www.cnbctv18.com/technology/babydoll-archi-is-2025s-revenge-porn-and-she-never even-existed-19642079.htm. 

5. Meera Srikant, Bharatiya Laws Against Deepfake Cybercrime Opportunities and Challenges, Vivekananda Int'l Found. (Apr. 28, 2025), https://www.vifindia.org/article/2025/april/28/Bharatiya-Laws-Against-Deepfake-Cybercrime -Opportunities-and-Challenges. 

6. Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (India).