Fake news confuses police

ARSHA (Purulia), Feb. 28: Police have called media reports that nine unidentified bodies of Maoists were found lying in Bagmundi forest area on 19 February "bogus".
According to Mr Ashok Kumar Prosad, SP of Purulia, police "had no definite information" when electronic media outlets were circulating this report.
While talking to The Statesman, he said: "We had nothing to say when the channels were telecasting and a few Kolkata daily newspapers, except The Statesman, published the news of Maoist bodies."
Mr Prosad said the combing operations were a routine. Even so, security forces led by the DSP (Purulia), headquarters, Mr Joy Biswas, continued search operations till 10 p.m. on 19 February and additional SP of Purulia, Mr Pranab Kumar Das, conducted operations on 20 February until 6 p.m."We had doubtful information from some villagers and so police had to investigate," an official of district police said. "We had forces searching for any information regarding super-sensitive nine Maoist bodies."
Two news agencies, PTI and UNI, were also puzzled by the telecast of various channels. Both agencies refused to publish the "bogus" news, since the SP and additional SP had told their correspondents: "No information so far".
A few local CPI-M members were informed by some villagers about nine unidentified bodies in two separate places at Dhanchatani and Shilingdah. They informed the local police of Arsha and Bagmundi respectively. The officers-in-charge of both police stations of Arsha and Bagmundi searched the areas first and reported the matter to their higher officials but did not find anything to confirm the rumours.
Police conducted combing operations, reportedly, on the pressure of CPI-M members of the local committee. "It was the hallucination of the CPI-M activists, who were earlier responsible in creating problems and torturing innocent villagers," alleged opposition leaders, including the Trinamul Congress, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (Soren) and Congress. They also expressed their displeasure regarding a section of media who blindly support the CPI-M and are not neutral news sources. Police said they are keeping a close watch for situations of such “hallucinations” and fake news