Fact-Check: No, Jharkhand is not issuing a new lockdown

In the last couple of days since the new Omicron variant has been detected in India, many have been fearing new lockdowns in the country to contain the new variant. WHO declared the Omicron variant a ‘global concern’ sounding alarm bells all over the country.

Amidst this, people began sharing a screenshot of Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren’s statement that Jharkhand is instituting a new lockdown in the state because of the new variant. This raised a lot of eyebrows causing panic amongst the residents of the states.

Fact-Check:

This screenshot of Hon’ble CM @HemantSorenJMM’s twitter account in circulation is a fake post. It is REITERATED that no such decision on COVID-19 Lockdown has been taken by the State Government. @JharkhandPolice is instructed to file FIR, identify the miscreants & take action. pic.twitter.com/jnrcImWDIB

— Office of Chief Minister, Jharkhand (@JharkhandCMO) December 4, 2021

However, this news turns out to be false as the official handle of Soren categorically denied the screenshot calling it fake. Soren’s office has instructed Jharkhand Police to look into the matter and find the person who spread this fake news.

DFRAC Editor

Digital Forensics, Research and Analytics Centre (DFRAC) is a non-partisan and independent media organisation which focuses on fact-checking and identifying hate speech. With the popularisation of the internet came the challenge of information overload and often times, our feeds are overpopulated with conflicting, incendiary and false information which is increasingly becoming difficult to ignore and not believe in

See author's posts