KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
A day after rumour over deaths “due to” pulse polio immunization created panic in the Valley, police have picked up some youth suspected to be involved in spreading rumours.
Inspector General of Police (IGP), Syed Javaid Mujtaba Gilani, told KNS that the person/s involved in spreading rumours have not been arrested so far “but police have picked up some suspected youth from various areas in the Valley for questioning”.
Police have directed all the district police heads to investigate that the actual sources of these rumours.
“Police have been fanned out across the Valley to unearth the rumour mongers who created huge panic among people on Sunday,” the IGP said.
Worried residents of the valley said that that “some news portals” as well as social networking pages “have always misled” and fuelled such terrible rumours in the past. “The so-called news groups, portals and other social networking sites have earlier mislead people in the valley. Rumour mongering is becoming dangerous,” Rayees Ahmad, a resident of Srinagar said.
People have appealed to police for strict action against such rumour mongers on social network sites and on internet.
From the wee hours of Sunday, the infants were vaccinated by the concern authorities. Some unknown persons spread rumours saying that several children across the Valley have been died due to polio immunization thereby created panic among the parents whose children were vaccinated.
With such reports, the Valley hospitals including SMHS, and GB Panth witnessed huge rush of patients.
However, the top health as well as administrative officials including Director Health, Sameer Mattoo and Principal GMC, Dr Kaisar termed the reports as baseless and appealed the police officials to take strict action against the person involved in spreading rumours.
