As the coronavirus crisis drags on, spread of misinformation on the internet just doesn't seem to stop. Despite strict government directives against it, the misinformation "virus" keeps going viral on social media. However, a novel attempt to stop it came to light on Tuesday.

On March 23, Naimur Rahman alias Nayeem (19) not only spread rumours about how many people have died from coronavirus, he did so by hacking into his friend's Facebook profile, leaving this friend out to dry when the CID came knocking.

To make matters more shocking, he confessed to CID that he did it to take revenge over an incident that happened years ago.

Not only that, he created a fake Facebook ID and alerted the authorities of the same misinformation that he himself spread from the friend's ID, in order to get the latter arrested.

"We first detained the friend who told us that his Facebook ID was hacked on March 23. We found proof of his claim and later located Nayeem -- leading to the arrest from Jatrabari area around 11:30pm on Tuesday," Khairul Alam, additional superintendent (Cyber Crime Unit) of CID, told The Daily Star.

The CID official claimed that Nayeem was a professional hacker and used to hack social media accounts on contract. This time, however, he finally had his comeuppance as the CID sent him to jail following his arrest.

"He wanted to kill two birds with one stone -- to create chaos and take revenge on his friend," Khairul said.

A case was filed with Kadamtali Police Station in this connection.