MANGALURU: Mangaluru City Police registered three cases over the circulation of fake and inflammatory content on social media with an intent to incite unrest in the coastal city in connection with the recent mob lynching of Ashraf in Kudupu.
Mangaluru City Police Commissioner Anupam Agrawal said that misleading information was being circulated on social media. “With an intention to create unrest and disrupt communal harmony, certain individuals and groups have spread fake news and provocative content.
We have registered a case at Konaje police station under Sections 192, 353(1), 353(2) of the BNS against a misleading post in the WhatsApp group ‘BEARY MUSLIM ARMY’, falsely claiming that the murder weapon (bat stump) used in the Kudupu incident had been recovered, and the post also questioned who was behind the crime.
Another case has been registered at Barke police station under Section 353(2) of the BNS against false information related to the same incident, which was uploaded on the Instagram page ‘Beary-royal-nawab’ intending to mislead the public,” Agarwal said.
Another case was registered at Kankanady Town police station under Section 353(1)(b) of BNS against fake and inflammatory content circulated in a WhatsApp group ‘Maikallo Beary’ with the intent to incite unrest in Mangaluru, in which Zakir Hussain, a resident of Munnur village in Ullal taluk, has been identified as the individual responsible for it.
“The police are committed to ensuring peace and harmony and will take strict action against those spreading misinformation or attempting to disturb public order...,” he added.