Boom spoke to Abhishek Mishra, founder of Viral in India, to understand his reasoning behind spreading fake news.

Fake News India: As the national elections in May 2019 draw closer, websites claiming to provide ‘authentic news’ are mushrooming, treading a very thin line between propaganda and outright fake news. Over the last several months, BOOM closely tracked one such website ‘Viral In India’ and found them pushing out unverified information which were blatantly false. Here are the 10 Viral In India stories fact checked by BOOM in Hindi and English.
Interestingly, Viral In India’s website has been taken down on Wednesday with a message displayed, “Services permanently suspended due to abuse report”. The website’s founder Abhishek Mishra was also taken in to custody by the crime branch unit of the Delhi police from Bhopal on January 22, ruffling several feathers in Madhya Pradesh as the local police were not informed about the arrest.
Mishra is said to have been released on bail on Tuesday. When BOOM tried to contact the officials concerned with his arrest, we were told by highly placed sources in Delhi police, on condition of anonymity: “Mishra was arrested based on a complaint made by an individual. The case was registered after the complainant alleged Mishra had hurt religious sentiments with his posts on his social media accounts and his website.”
A few days before his arrest, BOOM spoke to Mishra through several telephonic conversations to understand the motive behind running a site that only published pro-Congress propaganda. Here’s his unapologetic take on fake news, or what he prefers calling ‘news that mainstream media houses avoid airing.’