Chandigarh,
4 April, 2020
Haryana Police has registered a total of 38 FIRs against 36 accused persons for allegedly spreading fake news or rumors about COVID-19 on Whatsapp and other social media platforms across the state.
Giving this information here on Monday, Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order), Navdeep Singh Virk said that Home Minister Anil Vij had instructed the Police Department to initiate stern action against those circulating fake, misleading and unverified information about COVID-19 on social media so that potential confusion and panic among the general public could be prevented. All such rumour-mongers have been booked under different sections of IPC and IT Act, he added.
He further advised the general public neither to post unverified information on their social media accounts nor forward it to others on messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger etc, as they would could land in trouble.
In order to enforce the strict lockdown, Virk said that Police has also registered 1141 FIRs booking close to 1655 persons for violating the government order. Since the lockdown is in order, we have also seized 5750 vehicles and imposed a fine of Rs 7.11 Crore upon the violators under the Motor Vehicle Act, he said.