Bengaluru (PTI): An FIR has been registered by the Bengaluru Police against a Bangladeshi journalist and a woman staffer of an Indian news portal for allegedly spreading fake news and misinformation about Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi, both senior Congress leaders.

The case was registered at the High Grounds police station against the journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhaury and Aditi - working with the news portal, for sharing his claims on its social media handle, they said.

According to the complainant Srinivas G, associated with the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), the Bangladeshi journalist allegedly shared a post on his X handle linking Sonia Gandhi to a foreign spy agency.

He alleged Choudhary did so with an intention to malign the public image of the Gandhi family and that the journalist had shared such a post to create enmity between two religions.

Srinivas charged Choudhury with having made certain claims about Rahul Gandhi.

"Based on the complaint we received, we have filed an FIR against the two for allegedly spreading misinformation about the Gandhi family. Case has been registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita section 196 (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony and 353 (2) (publishing or circulating false information to create hatred on the basis of religion etc)," a senior police officer said.

An investigation is underway and accordingly action will be taken in the case, he said.

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Bhopal (PTI): Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav has asked officials to ensure meat and liquor are not consumed in and around religious towns located along the Narmada river, considered the lifeline of the state.

There are 21 districts, 68 tehsils, 1138 villages and 1126 ghats as well as 430 ancient Shiva temples and two 'shakti peeths' along the banks of the river.

Chairing a meeting of officials on Friday, Yadav also said Amarkantak in Anuppur district, from where the Narmada originates, must be given top priority for environmental protection.

"It must be ensured that meat and liquor are not consumed in and around the religious towns and places located on the banks of Narmada River. Future settlements, land should be identified away from the Narmada river's origin and a satellite city should be developed. Sewage should not be released into the Narmada. Work on it must be done within a time limit," Yadav said.

Latest technologies should be used for solid waste management, while satellite imagery and drone systems must be deployed for monitoring of activities along the river in order to enhance environmental protection, he said.

Asserting that all mining activities by machines must be banned, Yadav pointed out Narmada is the only river in the world whose 'parikrama' (circumambulation) is done by devotees.

In order to make it a major religious and tourism activity, work should be done in a phased manner to develop a 'parikrama path' for the convenience of devotees, he added.

"Activities for infrastructure development should be started through local panchayats and committees by marking places on the Parikrama Path. Self-help groups and local youth should be encouraged to develop homestays with arrangement of food etc for people undertaking parikrama of the river," Yadav said.

Of the river's 1312 kilometres, a dominant 1,079 km is in Madhya Pradesh.