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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

Video of an army jawan hitting back a police constable for misbehaving with him

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video said to show an army jawan hitting back at a police constable who misbehaved with him. FACTLY reports that the video was scripted, and that the man shown slamming the uniformed man was Shanky Singh, a professional wrestler—not an Indian Army member. It also says the other two people in police uniforms were wrestlers from Continental Wrestling Entertainment (CWE), rather than actual police officers. The report quotes Singham Dubey, who said the video was made to create social awareness and that the people dressed as policemen were wrestling mates who made scripted videos with the group. To investigate the video's provenance, FACTLY says it conducted a reverse-image search using screenshots from the clip. That search found a video with similar visuals on CWE’s YouTube channel, which the report says was published on 29 March 2017. The channel description identified it as “CWE Wrestler Shanky Singh Chokeslam to Police Constable Pandey.” The report also points to a Facebook post by CWE video creator Dalip Singh describing a staged encounter: Constable Pandey starts hitting Shanky Singh, who responds with a chokeslam. FACTLY says Dalip Singh posted other videos showing the same policemen fighting wrestlers. Together, the identified performers, Dubey’s account and the earlier CWE video support the conclusion that the clip depicts staged wrestling content, not the claimed encounter between an army jawan and a police constable.

Fact CrescendoCrime & justice

പര്‍ദ്ദ ധരിച്ച ഒരു സ്ത്രീ നടന്ന് വന്ന് വഴി അരികില്‍ നില്‍ക്കുന്ന ഒരു ആണ്‍കുട്ടിയുടെ കഴുത്തില്‍ പിടിക്കുകയും പിന്നീട് ബോധരഹിതനായ കുട്ടിയെ ഒരു ഓട്ടോറിക്ഷയിലേക്ക് കയറ്റി കടന്നു കളയുന്ന ദൃശ്യങ്ങൾ

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

Fact CrescendoCrime & justice

ഇന്തോനേഷ്യയിലെ ഒരു പോലീസ് ഉദ്യോഗസ്ഥന്‍ കൈകൂലി വാങ്ങുമ്പോള്‍ പിടിക്കപെട്ടു. ഇതിനു ശേഷം പരസ്യമായി ആ ഉദ്യോഗസ്ഥന്‍റെ യുണിഫോം ഊരിമാറ്റി ആ ഉദ്യോഗസ്ഥനെ പോലീസ് സേവനത്തില്‍ നിന്ന് പുറത്താക്കുന്നു

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

dpaCrime & justice

20 babies ontdekt in Mexicaans vleestransport.

Publisher’s rating: Het verhaal is verzonnen. Er is geen betrouwbaar spoor van dit verhaal te vinden. Het is niet helemaal zeker wat de context van de foto is die bij het verhaal gedeeld wordt. Het is wel zeker dat ze veel ouder is dan dit fictieve verhaal.

The claim describes Mexican police finding 20 babies concealed in cattle carcasses during a routine inspection of a truck carrying meat. The review traces the claim to an English-language Telegram post, then repeated by blogs and Facebook posts. Those posts attributed the story to a supposedly reputable Dominican newspaper, but the review says it could not find the report or photograph in Dominican newspapers. It instead found the same wording and image at Diario Libre SV, a San Salvador news site, and notes that the similar name may have caused confusion with the Dominican publication Diario Libre. The earliest version located by the review was published by Diario Libre SV on March 18, 2019. A version posted the next day specified Veracruz, Mexico, March 16, and claimed police had arrested a kidnapper. The review reports that searches using those details yielded no news of the incident. It also says Mexican fact-checkers at Animal Politico contacted the Veracruz prosecutor’s office, which had no knowledge of the alleged arrest. The review found no reliable trace supporting the claimed discovery. The accompanying photograph does not establish that the event occurred. Its exact origin remained uncertain, but the review found evidence that the image was online in September 2016—well before the alleged 2019 incident. Thus, while the image’s precise context could not be determined, its documented earlier circulation means it cannot substantiate the claimed discovery in Veracruz.

FACTLYCrime & justice

Strange child born in Shamili, Uttarpradesh, was killed by slitting his/her throat

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The post described in the review claimed that a “strange child” was born in Shamili, Uttar Pradesh, and said the child survived 50 poison injections before being buried after its throat was slit. The review’s finding was that the infant shown in the video was born in Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh, with a rare genetic disorder called Collodion; it found no evidence that the infant was killed as claimed. The location and alleged killing are distinct parts of the post’s narrative, and the review challenges both. [S1: “A post containing a video of an infant is being shared on social media, which says ‘a strange child was born in Uttarpradesh’s Shamili’. It further reads, ‘the child did not die even after injecting 50 poisons, then was buried after slitting his throat.‘”] [S1: “Fact: The infant was born in Madhya Pradesh’s Ratlam with a rare genetic disorder. In medical terms, the baby is called a ‘Collodion baby’. There is no evidence that the infant was killed by slitting his/her throat.”] To check the claimed Uttar Pradesh location, the review says it searched the internet using relevant keywords and found no reports of such a baby being born there. It then found a Facebook post with similar visuals whose description placed the incident in Madhya Pradesh. The review also reports finding news articles about a Collodion baby born at Ratlam’s Civil hospital, and an ETV Bharath story containing the same video as the post under investigation. [S1: “After searching with relevant keywords on the internet, we could not find any reports about such a baby being born in Uttar Pradesh. Further research led us to a Facebook post with similar visuals. The description of the mentions that the incident happened in Madhya Pradesh.”] [S1: “We searched the internet and found a few related news articles with this information. We also found a story by ETV Bharath which contains the same video as our original post.”] The review says the reports place the birth at Ratlam’s Civil hospital and identify the condition as Collodion. It also says its searches found no reports proving the claims that the child was poisoned 50 times or killed by slitting the child’s throat. On the evidence described in the review, the video was recirculated with a false location and an unsupported account of the infant’s death. [S1: “According to the reports, a baby with a rare genetic condition called ‘Collodion’ was born in Ratlam’s Civil hospital in Madhya Pradesh.”] [S1: “We found no reports on the internet that prove the kid was poisoned 50 times and eventually killed by slitting his/her throat.”]