Civil engineer held for spreading rumours on Lucknow slum blaze

LUCKNOW: Police on Sunday arrested a 29-year-old civil engineer for allegedly spreading false and inflammatory information on social media regarding the Vikas Nagar blaze incident of last week.

Sudhakar Tripathi, resident of Vikas Nagar, was arrested after four days of surveillance by Vikas Nagar police. Chitrakoot native, Tripathi works in a private firm.

According to police, the action stems from FIR registered on Apr 17 at Vikas Nagar police station after authorities took cognisance of multiple misleading and provocative posts circulated on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and X following the Apr 15 fire that gutted a large slum cluster in Vinayakpuram Sector 12.

SHO, Vikas Nagar, Alok Singh, who worked on the case, said a viral video, uploaded from an account under the username 'News Artery', falsely claimed that over 100 people had died in the blaze, while also alleging police inaction and inciting public anger.
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