Actors Rana Daggubati, Prakash Raj among others booked for 'promoting' betting apps
Hyderabad (PTI): A case was registered against six Telugu film actors, including Rana Daggubati, Prakash Raj, Vijay Deverkonda and 19 social media influencers, for allegedly promoting betting apps, police said on Thursday.
Actors Lakshmi Manchu, Praneetha, and Nidhi Agarwal were also booked in the case, a police official at Miyapur Police Station said.
The complainant, a businessman, accused the celebrities and the influencers of promoting the betting apps on social media through pop-up ads among others.
Based on the complaint, a case was registered under relevant sections of the BNS, Gaming Act and IT Act on March 19, the official said.
The police official further said they were planning to issue notices to those named in the FIR. Further investigation is on.
According to the complainant, while he was interacting with youths in his colony recently, most of them were discussing investing money in betting, gambling and casino apps which are being promoted by celebrities and influencers on social media.
He was even influenced by such betting applications, and was about to deposit in one such betting/gambling/casino website, but due to his family’s word of caution, he did not do so, the complainant said.
The FIR said the complainant, while using his social media applications, came across several celebrities and influencers who are actively promoting several of the “illegal” betting apps, websites and other platforms that have to be downloaded on mobile phones and used for betting and gambling.
The complainant alleged the influencers and celebrities who are promoting these apps and websites are doing so by accepting huge sums of money as commission, and remuneration. These platforms are encouraging public, especially people, who are in dire need of money, to invest their hard earned and family money into those apps/websites and slowly get addicted to them, leading to financial distress, he claimed.
The complainant named the celebrities and influencers who he alleged were promoting the "illegal" betting, gambling and casino applications/websites.
These platforms are actively promoting their apps/websites through social media advertisements with the help of celebrities and influencers, thereby reaching the target audience automatically without even the users actually searching for it, he said.
Thousands of lakhs of rupees are involved in these illegal platforms, he alleged and requested the police to take necessary action on the management of these platforms as well as on the individuals who were illegally promoting these platforms.
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Gurugram Police arrest BJP Yuva Morcha member for spreading fake murder story on social media
New Delhi: Gurugram Police have arrested BJP Yuva Morcha member Hariom Mishra, for allegedly spreading a fabricated and communally sensitive story on social media about the murder of a college student in Gurugram.
Mishra who is also known as Shaurya Mishra had shared a collage of four photographs on his X handle earlier this month. He claimed that a 24-year-old college student, identified as Nikita Agarwal, had been murdered by her classmate Arif Khan in Gurugram. In the post, he alleged that the woman was blackmailed, forced into prostitution, gangraped, and eventually killed. He also claimed that Arif dumped her body in a forest. The claims were presented as being based on police sources.
The post went viral and garnering over 1.5 lakh views, and was amplified by several right-wing social media handles across X, Facebook and Instagram. A verification of the claims revealed that no such incident had taken place in Gurugram. A search of credible news reports showed no record of any such murder. The police said this news would have inevitably attracted media attention if it were true.
On December 11, Gurugram Police publicly refuted the claims through their official X handle. They stated that the information which was being circulated was completely false. The police warned that legal action would be taken against those spreading misinformation. Despite the warning, Mishra neither deleted the post nor issued any clarification.
Police in Gurugram confirmed Mishra's arrest on December 16. The police said a FIR was filed after he continued to spread false information about the alleged murder of a Hindu woman by Muslim man. Police said Mishra, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is now being investigated.
Gurugram Police spokesperson Sandeep Singh told The Print that the accused had deliberately misrepresented facts and used objectionable content to spread hatred along religious lines. “Such posts can create serious disturbances in society, and the police take these matters very seriously,” he said.
A reverse image search conducted by fact-checkers at Alt News, revealed that the photographs used in the viral post were unrelated to the claims, while two of the images were traced to a Pinterest account belonging to influencer Maulik Chopra and another image was sourced from an Instagram post by influencer Shivam Thakur featuring a woman named Deepanshi Rawat. The fourth image was found on an unrelated Instagram page. The images depicted different individuals and had no connection to any crime.
Police said they are also investigating Mishra’s motive behind sharing the false and provocative content.
