SHANGHAI: Chinese authorities have detained and fined 15 people for spreading rumours on the Internet about “inside stories” and “reform programmes” of the country’s military, the official Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday.

China’s military has been one of the targets of a sweeping crackdown on corruption launched by President Xi Jinping, in which several senior officers have been caught up. “Some people ignore national laws and regulations, fabricate and spread military-related rumours,” Xinhua cited the military’s official newspaper, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Daily, as saying.

The group used Chinese microblogs and mobile messaging apps to spread the rumours, the paper said in its report late on Tuesday, without giving further details of the rumours. The paper did not identify the fifteen individuals but gave the family names of two of them as Liu and Dong. The PLA would work with police to intensify the crackdown on the spread of rumours and illicit information, it added.