raipur a day after a man was arrested on sedition charges over his social media post on power cuts in chhattisgarh a journalist was on friday held for publishing a false news over electricity supply in mahasamund districtdilip sharma who runs an online news portal was arrested based on a complaint lodged by executive engineer ee of electricity department mahasamund s k sahu a police officer saidin his complaint lodged on thursday sahu had alleged that sharma in a recently published news had claimed that there was a blackout in more than 50 villages in mahasamund for 48 hours which was false and baseless sub divisional officer of police sdop mahasamund narad kumar suryawanshi told ptisharma was booked under ipc section 505 1 b with intent to cause or which is likely to cause fear or alarm to the public or to any section of the public whereby any person may be induced to commit an offence against the state or against the public tranquility he saidsharma was produced in a local court which granted him bail he addedtalking to pti after his release sharma alleged he was being implicated in a false casehe claimed he had published an authentic news about the blackout for 48 hours in villages of bagbahra area in mahasamund from june 6 to june 8additional general manager public relations of chhattisgarh state power holding company vijay mishra said according to the state governments policy the power utility has been supplying 24 hours of electricity in cities as well as villagesdespite that some antisocial elements have been trying to defame power company by spreading false information of blackout he allegedpower cuts can be due to natural phenomenon like storms or some other local reasons presently premonsoon maintenance work is underway for which sometimes power supply has to be withheld but there is no question of power cut as chhattisgarh is a power surplus state mishra assertedmeanwhile the opposition bjp accused the congress government of murdering the freedom of expression in the statethe congress is not able to digest its loss in the lok sabha election it has become intolerant it is trying to murder freedom of expression in the state which is evident in the cases involving mangelal agarwal and dilip sharma state bjp chief vikram usendi saidit is a political character of congress to murder freedom of expression and whenever it comes to power to shows its nature he claimedthe action against sharma came a day after 53yearold mangelal agarwal was arrested in rajnandgaon district on thursday evening on the charges of sedition for allegedly spreading rumours over power cuts on a social media platformhowever facing criticism over the action chief minister bhupesh baghel friday directed the police to withdraw charges of sedition from the case