COMEDIAN ARRESTED FOR SPREADING FAKE NEWS
The earlier reports have it that a middle-aged woman, simply identified as Zulai, had been attacked on Wednesday, around Zenith Bank area in Bwari, over the suspicion that she had attempted to kidnap a two-year-old male child.
Penpushing further reports that, the Divisional Police Officer explained that, the police, in swift response arrested the woman and, during investigation, it was discovered that she was physically and psychologically unstable.
“When she was brought here, I asked my people to first take her to the General Hospital for medicals. They came back with a medical report indicating that she was suffering from depression. The report also referred her to Karu Psychiatric Hospital for proper evaluation. Right now, we are preparing to take her there’.
The Divisional Police Officer said while the investigation was going on, the comedian posted misleading information on the incident, on the social media platform.
“We were still on the matter when I started receiving calls about a post on Facebook claiming that the woman was a kidnapper. The report claimed that her phone had message conversations on how many children to be kidnapped. I made efforts and finally discovered who posted the story, brought him here for questioning, and he confessed he only added some of the details to add glamour to the story.”
Penpushing also reports that, the police boss expressed displeasure over the incident, cautioned against spreading unverified news, noting that such actions could cause a negative impact on people involved and result in a security breach in the affected community.
“We are working with the affected families to douse the tension. This town can be volatile, so we are not taking anything for granted,” he said.
Penpushing reports that the arrested fake news peddler while speaking admitted his error, confessing that the pictures and the alleged story were sent to him via Whatsapp, a social media platform, by an unknown number.