In a bid to reduce the spread of fake news in India and stop the
mob lynching happening in India at an alarming rate the government have
begun a massive clampdown on spread of fake news on social media
including WhatsApp.
This crackdown by the Indian police has already seen a 21 year old
student who has already spent 5 months in jail for being the admin of a
WhatsApp group in India for spreading what the police called
“objectionable content”.
It can be recalled that fake whatsapp messages has led to the
lynching of many people in India for suspicions of child kidnapping and
other reasons.
Junaid Khan a student from the town of Talen in India’s central
Madhya Pradesh state was arrested on February 14th following a complaint
filed at the police station by some locals based on charges stem from a
message that was forwarded in a WhatsApp group of which he was the
Admin, leading to him (the group admin) being arrested.
Police allege the man was the administrator of the WhatsApp group
but his family argued he was made a “default admin” of the group only
after the the original administrators had fled the group. However,police
say they took action based on the evidence they have seen. Police say
Junaid was the WhatsApp group administrator when the case came to their
notice.
His family says otherwise. “Junaid was a member of the group,
but not the admin when the post was already shared, he was made the
admin after the post has already circulated and the real admins fled the
group”.
He could not write his exams as the court already denied him bail
and he has already spent the last 5 months in jail. Police says it has
commenced investigation if there were indeed other admins in the group
who left.