A man identified as Sheru was arrested in Madhya Pradesh’s Raisen district on Friday, 3 April, and was booked under sections 269, 270 of the Indian Penal Code. Section 269 of the IPC deals with negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life and section 270 deals with malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life.
The development came after a video went massively viral which showed a fruit seller allegedly spitting on the fruits that he was selling. The social media users claimed that the man in the video is spitting and putting his saliva on the fruits, thereby, infecting them.
The video uploaded by a Twitter user ‘Desi Mojito’ received an engagement of over 43,000 views at the time of publishing this article.
Viral Video Dates Back to February
Monica Shukla, Raisen SP, told The Quint that the video in circulation is as old as 16 February.
“Since the video went viral today, we got in touch with the person who had uploaded the it and then finally caught hold of the person who can been in the viral video. The investigation is underway and we are yet to find out why was he doing that. Meanwhile, an FIR has been registered and Sheru has been arrested.”Monica Shukla, SP, Raisen district
In an interrogation with the police, Sheru told them that he had never done anything like this before. “I don’t know what happened to me. I was just putting the rotten fruits aside,” he told the police.
The police official further informed The Quint that Sheru’s medical tests are being performed and if the doctor advises, he will also be tested for coronavirus.
The Quint also received a copy of FIR of the registered case.
Meanwhile, Sheru’s daughter, Fiza told The Quint that her father is not well and the video in circulation is old. She further said that her father had a habit of counting money like that and that he was just sorting the fruits in the same way.
“My father has not been keeping well and he has not done anything like what is being said. He has been unwell for almost 10 years now,” Fiza added. She also released a video stating the same.
Nilendra Mishra, a local reporter in Raisen, also corroborated the information provided by the police officials and told The Quint that the video is not a recent one and dates back to 16 February.
(Update: The story has been updated to incorporate Sheru’s daughter’s version.)
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