VELLORE: Police on Tuesday arrested three men from Gudiyattam for spreading fake news about the novel coronavirus through WhatsApp.
The Gudiyattam town police arrested M Vijayan (19) of Nellorepet, M Sugumar (19) of Gandhi nagar, T Sivakumar (22) of Sethukarai, following a complaint lodged by a doctor from the Government Hospital in Gudiyattam.
The accused made fake videos on the coronavirus using KineMaster, a mobile app for video editing. They created a fascimile of a news bulletin that said a person affected by the virus was admitted in Gudiyattam GH, a police source said.
They uploaded and shared the videos on WhatsApp about three days ago. After taking notice of the videos that were widely circulated in the region, Manjunathan, a doctor from the GH lodged a complaint with the police, seeking action against the rumour-mongers.
The cyber crime police tracked the source of the video and zeroed in on the accused, the police source added.
They were arrested under Section 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), Section 505 (i) (statements conducing to public mischief), and Section 110 (b) (punishment of abetment) of IPC, and Section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of IT Act.