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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Crime & justice fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about crime & justice. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

6,849 published reviews in this topic

FACTLYCrime & justice

Recent video of police brutally thrashing Kanwariyas in West Bengal

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerned a video circulated during the 2022 Kanwar Yatra, describing it as recent footage of West Bengal police brutally thrashing Kanwariyas. The review says the footage instead showed an earlier police action against Shiva devotees at the Bhootnath temple in Kolkata, unrelated to that recent yatra: “The video shared in the post shows one-year-old incident visuals of West Bengal Police lathi-charging lord Shiva devotees at the Bhootnath temple in Kolkata.” To check the video’s history, the review reports conducting reverse image searches on screenshots from it. That search found a video with similar visuals posted by the BJP Bengal account on 16 August 2021. The review also says it searched for further reporting using relevant keywords and found an account of the incident in Dainik Bhaskar. These steps connected the circulated footage to the 2021 Kolkata event, rather than establishing it as footage from the 2022 Kanwar Yatra. The review describes the setting and reported reason for the police action: during August 2021, the Bhootnath temple remained restricted to devotees, while people gathered there during the holy month of Sawan. It says police reportedly used a lathi-charge to restrict the crowd after devotees violated COVID-19 restrictions. Thus the footage was genuine police action against Shiva devotees, but the claim misrepresented its timing and described the people involved as Kanwariyas at a recent event.

FACTLYCrime & justice

News clip reporting a recent fake doctor racket busted in Kolkata, West Bengal

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerns a news clip presented as reporting a recent bust of a fake-doctor racket in Kolkata, with social-media posts alleging that 560 doctors using fake medical degrees were arrested at top hospitals and that one had recently received a presidential award. The review identifies the clip as old, rather than a report of a recent event. [S1: “A video of ‘NDTV’ news clip is being shared on social media claiming that 560 doctors who carried out medical practice based on fake medical degrees were arrested recently from the top hospitals in Kolkata.”; “This post claims that one of these 560 fake doctors had recently received an award from the President of India.”; “This is not a recent incident.”] The review says the clip was published by NDTV in June 2017. It distinguishes the clip’s headline from the broader investigation: NDTV’s video title referred to six arrests in a month, while the review says West Bengal CID had identified over 500 doctors practising with fake degrees. It also reports that CID arrested six fake doctors, including two working at private hospitals. [S1: “The video shared in the post shows an old news clip published by the ‘NDTV’ in June 2017.”; “‘NDTV’ published this video on 09 June 2017, with the title, ‘6 Fake Doctors Arrested In Bengal In A Month, 3 From Top Kolkata Hospitals’.”; “over 500 fake doctors who practice medicine using fake medicine degrees were identified by the CID in West Bengal.”; “CID reportedly arrested six fake doctors including two doctors working in renowned private hospitals”] The award detail also refers to an earlier event, not a recent award connected to a recent arrest. The review identifies the doctor as Subhendu Bhattacharya, says Howrah Police arrested him on 2 June 2017 over alleged use of a duplicate registration number and fake medical degrees, and places his award from then-President Pranab Mukherjee at an event on 19 May 2017. [S1: “on 02 June 2017, Howrah Police arrested Subhendu Bhattacharya”; “received an award from the then President Pranab Mukherjee at the inauguration of the 6th Dr. Malati Allen Nobel Award on 19 May 2017.”; “was arrested on the charges of using a duplicate registration number and carrying out his practice based on fake medical degrees.”]

DoğrulaCrime & justice

Videonun organ kaçakçılarını gösterdiği iddiası

Publisher’s rating: Yanlış

The review examines a video circulated as evidence of organ trafficking. It describes two scenes: people being beaten and a child lying among ice, with a woman crying nearby. The accompanying claim suggested that the child was a victim of organ traffickers and that the people beaten were traffickers; some posts also claimed that 300 children had been frozen alive to steal their organs. The review concludes that the video does not show organ traffickers.

FACTLYCrime & justice

'Law can be taken into hand if family is attacked: Supreme Court’

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim comes from a newspaper clipping shared on social media with the headline “Law can be taken into hand if family is attacked: Supreme Court.” FACTLY identifies the clipping as an old report about a 2016 Supreme Court case, in which two men had been convicted after assaulting their neighbours. The review says the Supreme Court acquitted them on self-defence grounds and emphasized that “the appellants can legitimately claim right to use force once they saw their parents being assaulted.” The review’s key distinction is between the Court’s decision in that case and the broader impression created by the headline. It reports that media accounts at the time described the judgment as expanding self-defence, but says the Court “did not exclusively expand the purview of self defence” and instead interpreted Section 97 of the Indian Penal Code. Thus, the judgment did not, as the headline may suggest, give people a general free hand to use force whenever their family is attacked. FACTLY also describes why the Supreme Court overturned the High Court’s decision: the prosecution had failed to explain the accused men’s injuries and their father’s death. The review characterizes the viral clipping as a misleading interpretation of the judgment, rather than an accurate statement of a broad new rule. Its conclusion applies to the claim conveyed by this specific old clip and the judgment it discusses.

FACTLYCrime & justice

Police awareness message alerting people to be wary of beggars

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The post attributed a public-safety warning about beggars to Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi. It reportedly described organised begging and highway robberies and included precautions for avoiding scams. FACTLY’s review examined whether Bassi had issued that message, rather than whether every warning about begging was valid. The review reports that searches for relevant keywords found the same post circulating on social media at least as early as 2015. It also says the reviewers found no media report confirming that Bassi had issued the warning and found no such message on his official Twitter handle. The review’s conclusion is therefore that the attribution to Bassi is unsupported, not that the post originated with Delhi Police. The review adds context about other versions of similar warnings. It says messages were attributed to officials in different states, and describes a Kerala Police clarification about a separate circular circulated in 2018. That example concerns a different message; it supports the review’s account of similar material being recirculated under official identities, but is not evidence that Bassi issued the post in question.