Jajpur: Police here on Friday arrested a 39-year-old man for allegedly circulating misleading information about COVID-19 cases in Odisha on social media.
He has been identified as Samir Kumar Rout of Serapur village under Bari block.
According to police sources, he had posted that a man from Dharmasala area in the district had tested positive for coronavirus after returning from Dubai and was undergoing treatment in Bhubaneswar.
A social activist brought it to the notice of the local police, which conducted an inquiry and found it to be completely false.
“We verified the news and found it to be fake. Rout was arrested under relevant sections of the IPC,” said Dharmasala police station IIC Saroj Kumar Sahoo.
The accused has been remanded to judicial custody for two weeks after a local court rejected his bail plea, the sources added.
