just few days after the Pakistan based terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad attacked a convoy of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Pulwama on February 14 this year, a case was registered against a former student union president of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Shehla Rashid in Premnagar police station under the sections of 505, 153 and 504 of the IPC. She tweeted about Kashmiri girls being trapped inside their rooms with an angry mob outside demanding them to be expelled. Soon after Uttarakhand police and twitter handle of CRPF reacted to deny her claims . However, till then the tweet had gone viral and was shared by number of people in the country and abroad. Taking such cases in cognisance, Dehradun police with the Delhi based Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) conducted a one day workshop at Police line on Friday.
Addressing the media on sidelines of the workshop, Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Nivedita Kukreti said, “The workshop was to know that how to distinguish between fake and correct news, ignorance of which can lead to law and order situation. This was organised by the WhatsApp social messenger. The representative also told about two fact checking agencies through which one can verify that whether the post is right or fake.”
Speaking about the how to verify the authenticity of the shared post, Social Media Specialist from DEF, Ravi Guriya said, “It is important to verify before sharing any post which is unique and has not been published or broadcasted in any newspaper or TV channel. If the news is true, it will surely get published.”
He added, “If there is a post which appears to be unique or have grammatical errors. Also, if there is person who is sending fake messages in a group or in person, immediately report on the option on WhatsApp. There are two fact checking agencies ALT NEWS and BOOMLIVE through which one can fact check on their own. Do not trust every video or photo you come across, they can be misleading.”