Misinformation about freebies sparks chaos

Kolar: Scores of citizens in Kolar Gold Field (KGF) area of Karnataka, were seen lining up outside cyber cafes on Friday, eager to link their ration cards with their Aadhaar cards even before the Congress government could unveil the official guidelines for availing the promised guarantees. This rush was fuelled by the circulation of fake messages on social media, deceiving citizens with misleading information.

Reports suggest that certain miscreants took advantage of the situation by disseminating false messages through social media platforms. The miscreants asserted that May 31 marked the final deadline to link Aadhaar cards with ration cards in order to access the benefits of the Gruha Lakshmi scheme and Gruha Jyothi scheme.

As word quickly spread, hundreds of citizens, mostly women gathered outside cyber cafes, desperately seeking to fulfil the purported requirement. It has been brought to light that these cyber cafes are charging a fee of Rs. 250 per person to facilitate the “linkage” process which clearly was a scam.

Taking swift action, police personnel along with competent authorities conducted raids on multiple cyber cafes, simultaneously raising awareness among citizens who had formed lengthy queues. The cyber cafe owners were cautioned about severe consequences that would follow if they persisted in exploiting innocent citizens and cases were filed against them.

Additionally, authorities urged the public not to fall victim to rumours, emphasizing that the government had not yet released the specific guidelines for the five schemes.

The Congress-led government had recently granted in-principle approval to these guarantees during its inaugural cabinet meeting on May 20. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had reiterated his commitment to implementing these schemes following the

second cabinet meeting.