Man posts fake news of Parrikar’s death, held

panaji — The Goa Police Crime Branch on Wednesday arrested a 35-year-old man of South Goa’s Vasco port town for posting a fake news in Facebook on Tuesday, which claimed that Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who is currently being treated for advanced pancreatic cancer in the United States, is no more.

The Crime Branch sleuths arrested Kenneth Silveira after interrogating him for several hours on Wednesday.

“He has been arrested under Section 505 of the Indian Penal Code and will be produced before a magistrate tomorrow (Thursday),” Superintendent of Police (Crime Branch) Karthik Kashyap told reporters here.

Section 505 of the IPC deals with circulation of fake messages to cause public alarm.

Silveira’s post, which was uploaded in Facebook on Tuesday, read: “Just got news that Parrikar is no more”.

In subsequent messages on his Facebook wall, Silveira accepted that his message was incorrect after other commentators on his wall informed him of the folly, but did not delete the fake message from his wall.

Incidentally, one of the messages on Silveira’s Facebook wall is from the Officer on Special Duty to Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, Rupesh Kamat, who in a cryptic text earlier in the day said: “Time to go in”.

The police claimed that the arrest was necessary as Silveira, who is in the hospitality industry, was not co-operating with their probe. —