Growing circulation of fake news on social media has become a concern for police.
A recent figure revealed that both the state and the city police have accounted for 140 arrests and as many as 586 people were let- off after issuing caution.
Out of the 140 held for posting, forwarding and circulating fake news in the social media websites, Kolkata police have been able to nab 19 people so far, according to a data compiled till 2 May.
Source close to a senior officer at Lalbazar said “People who are found to be involved in creating, forwarding, and circulating fake contents regarding Covid-19 pandemic without verifying facts, causing panic and misgivings in the society, have faced arrests and those that realised their faults and apologised, had been let-off with a caution.”
The growing trends of circulating fake video became so menacing that it had stirred up the state administration at a time it is grappling with the growing allegations of bungling in ration distribution vis-a-vis the spike in number of Covid-19 cases.
An officer said that a person who later turned out to be a stage actor had feigned to be down with hunger and claimed himself as a victim of starvation on the face of growing outrage on alleged bungling in the ration distribution at Basirhat.
The impact of which came to be so menacing that the Bengal police swung into action and arrested the youths concerned.