The West Bengal police are going around the villages and towns with mikes urging people to ignore rumours about dacoits, child lifters and molesters that have spread in the state which resulted in mobs lynching two men and brutally beating up two women, one of them a 70-year-old NRI. Twenty-five people have been arrested so far, one of them was a class 12 student who had some suspicious social media posts on his phone.

The Director General of Police held a rare press meet in Kolkata to address the grim situation in the state. Surajit Kar Purakayasta, DGP West Bengal, said, "There have been some instances where some rumours are spreading that some people masked in black cloth and all are coming in certain areas either for the sake of causing robbery or molestation or child lifting. We are going to take strict actions against those mischief mongers."