PeakMetrics / Fact Checks
Crime & justice fact checks
Explore claims publishers have checked about crime & justice. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.
Search fact checks
Search by text or image6,836 published reviews in this topic
මෙරට පැහැර ගත් ළමුන්ව ගනුදෙනු සිදුකරන අයුරු බවට දැක්වෙන වීඩියෝවේ ඇත්ත, නැත්ත!!
Publisher’s rating: False
The video circulated in Sri Lanka with a Sinhala voice-over alleging that a man in Colombo was abducting children, had been identified by police, and had been caught trying to take a child from a Muslim school. The review says the message also warned that children were lured with sweets. Its investigation examined whether the video showed an actual local abduction rather than accepting the voice-over as evidence of what the footage depicted. The review reports that it searched for mainstream news coverage of a child abduction in Colombo and of the video, but found none. It then used reverse-image searching on frames from the circulated clip. That search traced the footage to a video made in India as a child-safety awareness production, not a recording of an actual abduction. The review also notes that the full version had circulated among Indian Facebook users in 2022. The full video’s own on-screen statements are central to the conclusion: at 0:30, it says the incident is not real; at 1:28, it describes the video as fictional and its events as scripted for awareness. The review further reports that Sri Lankan Police Media Spokesperson Nihal Thalduwa said no such abduction had been reported, and that investigations into complaints of attempted abductions in several areas found those reports to be false. Taken together, the footage’s Indian awareness-video provenance and its explicit disclaimers contradict the claim that it documents children being abducted in Sri Lanka.
Visuals of a Muslim husband physically abusing his Hindu wife in Etawah, UP
Publisher’s rating: FALSE
The claim concerns a video said to show a Muslim man physically abusing his Hindu wife in Etawah, Uttar Pradesh. FACTLY reports that the footage does show a husband attacking his wife in a domestic-violence incident in Etawah, but says the religious identities attached to the viral claim are wrong: both people belong to the Hindu faith. The communal framing therefore misrepresents the incident, even though the violence itself is real. To identify the footage, FACTLY says it reverse-image-searched screenshots from the viral video and found news reports showing the same visuals. Those reports identified the man as Shivam Yadav and the woman as his wife, Jyoti, and located them in Naharia village, in the Bakewar region. FACTLY reports that Jyoti’s mother said the couple had married five years earlier according to Hindu customs, and that she filed a complaint after learning of the incident. The review also cites accounts from the victim and police. Jyoti said Shivam attacked her amid dowry-related issues and suspicions of an extramarital affair. Etawah Police confirmed that a case had been registered, and the district rural superintendent of police reiterated that in an interview. The evidence described in the review supports the conclusion that this was a domestic-violence case involving a Hindu couple, not the interfaith abuse scenario asserted in the post.
“É no Nordeste também que a gente tem o maior registro de apreensão de armas de fogo”
Publisher’s rating: Falso
బొంబాయిలో బుర్కా వేసుకొని బజారులో తిరుగుతున్న భజరంగ్ దళ్ కార్యకర్తను పోలీసులు అదుపులోకి తీసుకున్న వీడియో
Publisher’s rating: FALSE
Dalit Hindu woman has slit throats of 6 Muslim youth for threatening rape and conversion in Babatpur, Varanasi
Publisher’s rating: FALSE
The claim concerns a viral newspaper-style clip alleging that a Dalit Hindu woman slit the throats of six Muslim youths after they threatened rape and conversion, with the incident said to have occurred in Babatpur, Varanasi. The clip also claimed that the six men’s heads were recovered from the Babatpur Kali temple. FACTLY’s investigation reports that Varanasi police said no such incident had taken place and that the circulated clip was fabricated.
Die Polizei sagt, wenn Sie einen Hund bei hoher Hitze in einem Auto eingesperrt sehen, machen Sie ein Foto von Hund und Auto, rufen Sie die Polizei, warten Sie 5 Minuten und schlagen Sie die Autofenster ein. So werden Sie nicht wegen krimineller Schäden angeklagt.
Publisher’s rating: Ist ein Hund in einem Auto klar ersichtlich in Lebensgefahr, sollte man in jedem Fall die Polizei informieren. Nur im äußersten Notfall sollte eine Scheibe eingeschlagen werden, um das Tier zu retten. Allerdings ist selbst dann noch mit rechtlichen Konsequenzen zu rechnen.
The claim describes a supposed police procedure for finding a dog trapped in a hot car: photograph the dog and vehicle, call police, wait five minutes, then break a window without facing criminal consequences. The Deutsche Presse-Agentur review examined that specific social-media post and asked the Vienna police’s social-media department about the alleged rule. Police said that breaking a car window without authorization could lead to a criminal complaint for property damage, and specifically rejected the post’s claimed five-minute rule. The police recommendation reported by dpa was to call them so officers could attend and handle the situation. The review does not say that a window must never be broken. It reports advice from ÖAMTC lawyer Nikolaus Authried that breaking one may be legally justified when a person’s or animal’s life is threatened and there is no other way to help. But the circumstances matter: the review says the act must be necessary and the least harmful available means. It also notes that if the dog’s condition is later judged incorrectly, the person who broke the window may still face a civil claim for the damage. So the post’s assurance of no legal consequences is not supported. The review also recommends acting quickly and documenting the situation with photos, while distinguishing that practical advice from any automatic permission to smash a window after five minutes. Its account says a dog’s symptoms can indicate worsening heat distress, and cites an infographic shared by Vienna police: temperatures in a locked vehicle rise rapidly, with danger to a dog above 40°C and acute danger at 46°C. These details reinforce the need to contact police promptly, but do not establish a fixed waiting period or blanket immunity for damaging the vehicle.
Video shows Kuki girl beaten to death in Manipur
Publisher’s rating: FALSE
Visuals of a Hindu girl lying in a pool of blood after being murdered by her Muslim lover in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh
Publisher’s rating: FALSE
The post claimed that the video showed a Hindu woman being murdered by her Muslim lover in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. FACTLY’s review says the footage instead shows an attack in Barranquilla, Colombia: Jesús Salvador Tovar stabbed his former partner, Sandra Milena Altamar Ojeda, during a conciliation hearing at the La Paz District Court on 16 November 2022. The review reports that she was seriously injured and taken to hospital, and that Tovar later admitted the attack during police interrogation. [S1]
Über einen großen Pädophilie-Skandal in Großbritannien berichten die Medien nicht.
Publisher’s rating: Über die Vorfälle im Jahr 2015 wurde in Österreich und Deutschland sowie auch international breit berichtet, genauso in den Jahren danach über die Strafverfolgung der Täter.
The claim concerns a British child sexual-abuse scandal that a social-media post said major media had ignored, despite the subject being discussed on French television. The review identifies the footage as a report by i-Tele, now called CNEWS, and says it had been uploaded to YouTube on 21 May 2015. That provenance places the report years before the fact-check and shows the topic had appeared in broadcast media.