36 ‘fake’ social media posts on Tripura violence flagged by Maharashtra cops

This comes after violence erupted in Amravati city, the police suspended the internet services in the entire city to ensure it’s not misused by anti-social elements to create more violence. The city continues to be under curfew with no internet.

Confirming the development, Yashasvi Yadav, special inspector general, Maharashtra Cyber, said, “We have flagged 36 inflammatory and fake news related posts over the past four to five days which were being circulated with the intention of spreading violence in the state. We have got in touch with all the social media platforms and asked them to pull down the posts.”

The official said the posts were being made viral by sharing them further. The cops have also traced the IP addresses from where the posts were being uploaded and have written to 36 police stations across Maharashtra asking them to register FIRs under appropriate sections for uploading the malicious posts.

The violence in Amravati city had started Friday last week during a morcha organised by minority groups to protest the violence in Tripura. Apart from Amravati, violence was also witnessed in Nanded city and Malegaon, Nashik.

Following Friday’s violence in Amravati by the minority community, BJP announced a bandh Saturday in protest and a much bigger violence took place that day where two shops and four vehicles of minority communities were torched and nine policemen were left injured in stone pelting.

Soon after, Amravati city went under curfew and internet services were suspended. Several BJP leaders, including two former ministers, mayor, spokesperson and three corporators were arrested for calling the bandh that led to the violence.