BJP MP Tejasvi Surya and editors of several Kannada news portals have been booked for allegedly spreading fake news regarding a farmer’s suicide in Karnataka, according to police, reports PTI.
The controversy began when Surya, the MP from Bengaluru South, shared an article on X (formerly Twitter) on November 7. The article claimed that a farmer in Haveri district had died by suicide after discovering that his land had been seized by the Waqf Board. In the post, Surya accused Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Minister Zameer Ahmed Khan of actions that he claimed were causing widespread problems in the state.
However, the Haveri district Superintendent of Police later dismissed the news as false. The officer clarified that the farmer, Rudrappa Channappa Balikai, had died by suicide on Jan. 6, 2022, due to loan and crop losses, not land disputes with the Waqf Board.
Surya deleted the post after the clarification.
A case was filed under Section 353(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which pertains to the circulation of statements intended to incite hatred or enmity between different groups.
The FIR was registered at the Cybercrime, Economic Offences, and Narcotics police station in Haveri, based on a complaint from a police officer in the district’s social media monitoring cell. The editors of Kannada Dunia and Kannada News e-portals are also named in the case.