The Mumbai Police on Tuesday claimed to have unearthed a hashtag scam aimed at spreading negative and defamatory contents against the Maharashtra government, the Mumbai Police, and the Commissioner of Police, using the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput.
Police sources said that the number of Twitter accounts which were suspicious in nature were approximately more than 1.5 lakh and related bots were approximately more than 1,000. The police suspect that this may increase upon further investigation.
“Many accounts can be common in the case of hashtags mentioned above like #SSR and #ParamBirScam. For further investigation, the details of all the accounts, which are suspicious in nature as bots, will be handed over to Twitter to confirm the details and eliminate them with immediate effect while maintaining the evidence for further course of action,” a release from the Mumbai Police said.
It added that at present many accounts were trying to disappear while many were deleting the negative posts to evade the probe. The police suspect that a substantial percentage of the accounts are bot-operated and are being run from outside India, using proxy server to remain anonymous.
Maharashtra Congress general secretary Sachin Sawant, who had handed over proof of fake accounts’ use in the Rajput death case to the police, said that he hoped the Mumbai Police would nab the brain behind this racket.
