Indore: After last night's "faux pas" which brought untold shame to the city, the police on Friday registered a case against an unidentified person for spreading the rumour regarding the false news of the "death" of former Lok Sabha Speaker and senior BJP leader, Sumitra Mahajan on social media. The police could not identify the person, who spread the fake information, till this report was filed.
According to Sarafa police station in charge Sunil Sharma, a case under section 188 of the IPC was registered against an unidentified person on the complaint of former corporator and Prachar Pramukh of Shri Ahilya Utsav Samiti Sudhir Dedge.
Dedge in his complaint said the fake news of Mahajan's "death" was spread by someone on social media on Thursday night. After that, Dedge talked to Mahajan over phone and came to know that she was doing fine. In his complaint, Dedge said strict action should be taken against the person who spread the fake news. Police will take the help of cyber experts to know about the offender.
It may be noted that the news was spread across the country and many leaders also tweeted in this regard. However, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor deleted his tweet after he came to know that the news was fake.
Tharoor apologises for his 'goof-up' tweet
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday spoke to former Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan's son and apologised for his tweet, which wrongly talked about the BJP veteran's "death". Tharoor and few media organisations had on Thursday announced the demise of Mahajan (78). However, the Congress MP and others had later deleted the tweets after BJP leaders pointed out that she was fine. On Friday, Tharoor said in a tweet, "Spoke to Sumitra Mahajan ji's son to convey my sincere apologies at last night's misinformation. He was most gracious & understanding. Delighted to hear she is very much better. Expressed my best wishes to her & her family." After Thursday night's tweets by Tharoorand others about her demise, Mahajan was heard in an audio clip saying, "What should I do? These people carried the news without any confirmation. They should have at least confirmed with the district administration in Indore." "The Central government and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla should take note of this," the BJP veteran said in the clip. "This became all-India news. I started getting calls from my relatives in Mumbai. My brother's daughter responded to Tharoor's tweet asking who gave him this fake news," she said. The former Lok Sabha speaker's younger son Mandar also put out a video clip Thursday night, saying that his mother was perfectly fine and asked people not to believe the false news about her. Mahajan, popularly known as 'Tai' (elder sister in Marathi) had represented the Indore Lok Sabha seat eight times in a row from 1989 to 2014.
