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Updated: Mar 09, 2020 02:51 IST

A man has been booked in Arunachal Pradesh’s East Siang district for allegedly posting misleading information on social media regarding novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, the police said on Sunday.

An First Information Report (FIR) was lodged against Subu Kena Tsering based on a complaint filed by the district medical officer Kaling Daiat Pasighat police station on Friday, the police added.

Tsering allegedly posted in a Facebook group that coronavirus infection has reached Pasighat and two patients have been referred to Dibrugarh in upper Assam, officials were quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

He is yet to be arrested, they said.

The Arunachal Pradesh government has also decided to temporarily suspend issuing Protected Area Permits (PAPs) to foreigners to check the spread of coronavirus infection, officials familiar with the developments said.

Foreigners require PAPs to enter the sparsely populated state that shares a border with China.

In an order issued on Friday, chief secretary Naresh Kumar directed all PAP issuing authorities to suspend the issue of the permit immediately till further orders. “The spread of coronavirus in India is primarily from visitors who had a history of travelling abroad or through tourist who had visited India ... In order to prevent the spread of Corona Virus (COVID-19) in Arunachal Pradesh, it has been decided to temporarily suspend issuing of PAP to visit Arunachal Pradesh,” the order stated.

While there has been no positive case detected in the north-east’s largest state yet, the ban has been issued as a precautionary measure. Earlier, the Sikkim government announced similar curbs by denying inner line permits (ILPs) to foreigners.

On Friday, one United States (US) national, who had travelled to Assam, tested positive for COVID-19 after he reached Bhutan. This led the Assam government to issue a directive to all the district administration authorities to take preventive measures advised by the Centre.

The virus, which first emerged in China last December, has spread to 97 countries and has infected 107,485 people, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus tracker. So far, the virus has claimed 3,648 lives across the world.