UP man accused of murder uses AI image to fake death and evade trial

Police arrested Rajkumar Rajbhar after uncovering his alleged AI-assisted fake death plot. The ruse was allegedly designed to evade a murder trial and financial liabilities.UP man stages goat funeral, uses AI image to fake death and evade trialGhazipur,Oct 25, 2026 22:03 ISTA man accused of murder in Uttar Pradesh allegedly used an AI-generated image of a body on a funeral pyre to obtain a death certificate and convince a court that he was dead, police said, according to news agency Press Trust of India.Police said the accused staged the funeral of a goat in Ghazipur and allegedly used artificial intelligence to make it appear that his own body was on the pyre. He allegedly devised the plan to evade legal proceedings and avoid repaying money collected from people on the pretext of investing it in the stock market.Additional Superintendent of Police Anoop Kumar told PTI that police arrested Rajkumar Rajbhar, also known as Raju, on Sunday. The 38-year-old is a resident of the Kotwali Nagar police station area in Mau district.Rajbhar is an accused in the 2016 murder of Yogesh Singh, who was shot dead. During the trial, he allegedly fabricated a story about his own death and submitted forged documents to the court in an attempt to escape the proceedings, the officer said. Kumar said Rajbhar had not completed Class 12 and was involved in stock market trading. He had collected money from prominent people in several cities after claiming that he would invest it in the stock market.Acting on information, personnel from Kotwali Nagar police station, with help from the Special Operations Group and a surveillance team, arrested Rajbhar near the Khwajajahanpur locality in Mau on Sunday morning, police told PTI. According to police, Rajbhar hatched the alleged conspiracy in Ghazipur on May 30, 2025, to stage his death. As part of the plan, an AI-generated image purportedly showing a body on a funeral pyre at a cremation ground was used.Images of a funeral procession and last rites were also allegedly staged to make the claim of his death appear genuine. Rajbhar then allegedly obtained several documents, including a death certificate from the Mau Municipal Council.He submitted the documents to a court in an attempt to prove that he had died and then went into hiding. Police later uncovered the alleged conspiracy during an investigation and arrested him.A case has been registered against Rajbhar at Kotwali Nagar police station for allegedly obtaining forged documents to falsely represent himself as dead. Charges have been filed under various sections of the BNS, police said.Police said Rajbhar allegedly staged his death using AI-generated and funeral images, obtained a death certificate and submitted it to the court before going into hiding. He has since been arrested and booked over the alleged use of forged documents.- Ends