KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 — Lim Guan Eng’s office has lodged a police report over the dissemination of fake messages and news relating to the Finance Minister on social media.

A press statement sent out today said that many of these messages appeared in the form of a news headline.

"The fake news messages appeared in news format such as using Astro Awani’s logo and falsely claiming that Lim had said Agong has no right to deny the Attorney General’s nomination.

"In another message using Malaysiakini’s logo, the culprits falsely alleged that the Finance Minister had said that the Malays should not beg too much from the government, among others.”

The statement stated Lim has never once issued such statements and the messages spread via WhatsApp are false and are aimed at defaming him.

The messages were spread with the evil intention to incite racial sentiments, anger, unhappiness and hatred towards Lim.

"The police report was filed on Thursday at the Dang Wangi police station. Such false information often takes the form of news snippets from prominent local portals to confuse the public.

"Therefore it is important to check all the information received, be it on social messaging apps such as WhatsApp, social media, or other channels, with professional sources including websites and the official social media of the Finance Ministry.”

Note: A previous version of this story contained an error which has since been corrected.