Selim's son under CID scanner for uploading fake info on Facebook

Kolkata: The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has begun investigation against Russell Aziz, son of CPI-M MP Mohammad Selim, for uploading false information on his Facebook page to create panic among people, voters and poll personnel on the day of Panchayat election, which was held on Monday.

Aziz had stated on his Facebook page that in north Dinajpur, a presiding officer and a polling officer had been killed by some miscreants, allegedly close to Trinamool Congress. As Aziz is the son of Mohammad Selim from North Dinajpur, polling personnel thought that the Facebook post was true and stopped work.

They alleged that the State Election Commission had not made adequate security arrangements for the polling personnel. The voters got panicked and in some booths, polling was stopped for some time.

However, Aziz by then had withdrawn the information from his Facebook page. But the information had already spread like wildfire and to bring the situation under control, the district administration issued a statement, stating that no incident of that sort had happened.

The matter was reported to the Cyber Crime police station in Salt Lake. The CID took up the case and has begun an inquiry in this regard. The police have said that the information was deliberately uploaded to create confusion among the voters, public and state government employees, who are engaged with polling.

It may be mentioned that because of a series of wrong information that have been uploaded on Facebook, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has termed the social media platform as "fakebook." She had alleged that BJP and CPI-M have uploaded false information deliberately, just to malign the state government.

It may be recalled that a few months ago, BJP had uploaded the photograph of a riot which had actually happened in Bangladesh and not in North 24-Parganas.

Banerjee had pointed out this fake information and urged all Trinamool Congress supporters, students, government officials and party sympathisers, to counter such malicious information, along with photographs.