ALAPPUZHA: A Welfare party leader was arrested on Tuesday for sending fake messages and organsing migrant workers, offering them help to return to their homeland en masse.

The arrested person is Welfare party district president Nazar Arattupuzha and he was arrested by Harippad police on Tuesday evening.

His fake message created panic among the workers, triggering mass exodus of the workers to their homeland. They also gathered unlawfully despite the clamping down of section 144 in the wake of Coronavirus outbreak.

He was later released on bail.