Pakistani authorities arrested a man on charges of spreading disinformation regarding the UK Southport stabbing incident.
According to BBC, Lahore police arrested a man named Farhan Asif for spreading fake news about the suspect involved in the Southport stabbing incident that claimed the lives of three young girls.
Asif was associated with a website named Channel3Now that posted hours after the attack on Southport in July, giving the fake name of the attacker and claiming that the suspect was an asylum seeker who came to the UK by boat.
This fake news was later quoted in the numerous viral posts on social media platforms, which played a vital role in the riots that broke out in England and Northern Ireland.
Moreover, when Lahore police asked Asif about the article, he said that he copied the information from a UK-based social media account, adding that he ran the website alone.
A person who claimed to be ‘management’ at the site told the BBC that the publication of the fake name on the website ‘shouldn’t have happened, but it was an error, not intentional.’
Furthermore, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has now taken the case for further investigation about the involvement of other people in the act.
