Lucknow, 21 December: The drive of Uttar Pradesh Police against fake news and cyber crime is in progress. An acting Director General of Police (DGP-UP) Uttar Pradesh Prashant Kumar has given instructions regarding the creation of “digital warriors” for the participation of youth and social media influencers in this campaign.
The DGP told reporters on Saturday that Uttar Pradesh Police had taken a meaningful initiative in the year 2018 and added people from different sections of the society active on WhatsApp as digital volunteers.
In the year 2023, “WhatsApp Community Groups” were also created by adding all the policemen of UP Police. With their help, misleading news is being refuted and the commendable work of the police is being publicized. At present, about 10 lakh people are connected as digital volunteers and about 02 lakh policemen are connected through community groups.
People from villages, mohallas and local towns were added as these digital volunteers, which has yielded meaningful results. The Director General of Police, taking a new initiative in this direction, has given important instructions to all the department heads and office heads of the state regarding making the young generation of social media influencers and college and university students “digital warriors” of the police to widely disseminate fake news, awareness about cyber crime and the commendable work of the police on various platforms of social media.
He said that by training college and university students, critical thinking can be developed in them, so that they can analyze and verify any information and become “digital warriors” of UP Police and report cyber crime and fake news. Along with this, these students will also be able to make their family members and friends aware about fake news and cyber crime in their social circle. In Maha Kumbh 2025, a pilot experiment has been done in Prayagraj district with digital warriors to fulfill the above objectives, which has been extremely successful and is now being implemented at the state level as well.
Digital warriors will be selected in the following four categories
1- To refute fake news and alert people against cyber crime 2- For awareness about cyber crime 3- As a cyber trainer 4- Publicity of police campaigns and commendable works
It is worth mentioning that school students will also be included in the workshops organized for awareness campaign against fake news and cyber crime. But only college, university students and social media influencers will be selected as ‘digital warriors’. A WhatsApp group of ‘digital warriors’ will also be created at the district and headquarters level. After complete training, the ‘digital warriors’ of UP Police will act as a strong wall against fake news and cyber crime.
