Govt to take stern action against people behind COVID-19 fake news: Tynsong

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaJune 11, 2020

The state government has constituted a dedicated team to find out those responsible for spreading fake news about COVID-19 positive cases, which has created unnecessary panic among the citizens of the state.

“We have already entrusted the matter to a dedicated team to trace out who are behind in spreading such rumours, which I personally feel this is totally wrong,” Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong told reporters here on Thursday.

Tynsong also informed that he alone received not less than 30-40 calls from the public for clarification after the rumours that some persons in Secretariat have been tested positive spread like wildfire on Wednesday night.

“So now, we are on the job and even the police department is on the job to find out and whoever is responsible, we will put them behind bars as per prescribed norms in the Act,” he added.

Two first information reports (FIRs) have been filed by the Director of Information and Public Relations to the officer in charge, Cyber Crime police station.

The FIR stated that a facebook page by the name  ‘Lakewoods Eco Camp’ has uploaded two fake news regarding containment zones in Meghalaya.

These two post states that “one small locality in Nongmynsong is containment zone public needs details? Transparency please…” and “two containment zones already Umsamlem Nongmynsong for contact tracing procedures public demands transparency now??”

Another FIR was also filed against some unknown person (s) for propagating fake news through WhatsApp and other social media platforms.

These fake news states that “some officials from Secretariat and NIC have been tested positive for COVID-19.” and “in Nongmynsong 4 (four) people have tested positive including one who work in the wine store at Demseiniong petrol pump. There are others and spread through social contact is possible. Be careful, dont associate with friends who have returned from anywhere.”

Meanwhile, Health Minister AL Hek urged the citizens not to fall for such rumours spread in social media. He also assured that the government will take stern action against the culprits involved in such illegal activities.