Tablighi Jamaat fake news saga continues: Arunachal Pradesh government calls out Zee News for false report

It’s open season on Covid-19 fake news. In the past few weeks, fact checkers, governments, and even the Uttar Pradesh police have called out multiple media outlets for peddling misinformation and fake news, mostly involving the Tablighi Jamaat, a Muslim religious movement being blamed by sections of the media for spreading the virus in India.

On Friday, the Arunachal Pradesh Information and Public Relations department called out Zee News for falsely reporting that the Northeastern state has 11 coronavirus patients who can be traced back to last month’s Tablighi Jamaat function in Delhi’s Nizamuddin.

The IPR, which is responsible for "dissemination of government news/programmes” in Arunachal also pointed out that the state has reported a single positive case of coronavirus so far.

This isn’t the first time Zee News has been called out for spreading false information around the coronavirus outbreak. Several other prominent media outlets, including news agency ANI and Hindi daily Amar Ujala have been similarly called out.