Lockdown: Maha Cyber to serve CrPC notices to offenders

In a bid to curb the spread of

rumours and misinformation regarding COVID-19 on social media, Maharashtra Cyber has warned that offenders will be served notices under section 149 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), an official said on Wednesday.

The state police's cyber wing has registered at least 400 offences at various police stations across the state amid the COVID-19 lockdown, the official said.

In a meeting on Monday, Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh directed officials to serve notices to cyber offenders under section 149 of CrPC, apart from booking them under Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act, the official said.

 

Section 149 of CrPC gives police the right to take steps to prevent a cognisable offence.

Of the 400 offences by the cyber police, 170 were for forwarding objectionable messages, photographs, memes and videos, while 158 were registered for putting up objectionable posts, he said.

Several of these posts and forwards were regarding coronavirus and attributing its spread to a particular community, the official said.

As many as 18 cases were registered over Tik-Tok videos, seven cases on objectionable tweets on Twitter, four offences for Instagram posts and 43 for sharing audio clips and using YouTube, he said.

At least 213 cyber offenders had been arrested and 102 objectionable posts were removed from social media platforms so far, he said.