President Ranil Wickremesinghe dispatched a high-powered team of experts to the 2,300-year-old Sri Maha Bodhi tree in the sacred city of Anuradhapura, an ancient capital of the South Asian nation.

It included the head of the telecom regulator, his technical chief and the director of the National Botanical Gardens, along with university professors and district administrators.

Several visits were made, surveys were carried out and the centuries-old tree was examined and monitored before a conclusion was reached: There were no 5G signals in the area in the first place.

The episode highlighted the speed with which fake news travels in Sri Lanka, but even more so, it illustrated the reverence in which the country holds the Sri Maha Bodhi.

The tree is believed to have been grown from a cutting of the bodhi tree in India that sheltered the Buddha when he attained enlightenment more than 2,500 years ago.

It is both an object of worship and a symbol of national sovereignty on the majority Buddhist island of 22 million people.

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