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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

Punjab CM Bhagwat Mann’s picture with Goldy Brar, the gangster who claimed responsibility for Sidhu Moosewala’s Murder

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The post presented a photo of Bhagwat Mann with a man named Goldy Brar as an old post by the gangster who claimed responsibility for Sidhu Moosewala’s murder. The review found that the man in the photo was instead a Mohali-based businessman with the same name: “The photo shared in the picture shows Bhagwat Mann posing along with a Mohali based businessman Goldy Brar. He is not the gangster Goldy Brar who claimed responsibility for the Murder of Sidhu Moosewala.” To trace the image, the reviewers used reverse image search with relevant keywords. They report finding the same photo on a Facebook account named Goldy Brar, posted on 10 March 2022. The review also describes a video the account holder shared on 29 May, after the photo went viral in connection with the murder, in which he clarified that he was not the Canada-based gangster. The article identifies him as Manjit Singh Goldy Brar, a businessman from Mohali: “While he was giving an interview to the ‘Daily Ajit’ news website, he mentioned his full name as Manjit Singh Goldy Brar.” The identification was checked against images of the murder suspect. The review says it compared those pictures with the photo in the post and concluded that the man pictured with Mann was not the suspect. Thus, the shared image showed two people with the same name being conflated, rather than establishing that Mann posed with the gangster: “On comparing these pictures with the photo shared in the post, it can be confirmed that the man posing with Bhagwat Mann in the photo is not Sidhu Moosewala’s murder suspect Goldy Brar.”

FACTLYCrime & justice

Video of Yasin Malik’s wife crying after a life term was handed to him by an NIA court

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim links footage of a crying woman to Yasin Malik’s wife, Mushaal Hussein Mullick, and to the life sentence imposed on Malik by an NIA court. FACTLY’s review says the footage instead comes from an “Azadi March” in Pakistan, organised by Imran Khan against the PML-N government. It concludes that the woman shown is not Mullick. To investigate the video’s origin, the review reports conducting a reverse image search on screenshots. That search led to the same video on YouTube, uploaded by Pakistani news channel GNN. The review also says it found the video shared by official accounts of Imran Khan’s political party. In those sources, the footage was associated with the Azadi March, and the review says none identified the crying woman as Malik’s wife. The review distinguishes the viral footage from a separate, earlier appearance by Mullick: it reports that she cried during a press conference in 2019 while appealing about her husband and his health. It also identifies her as a Pakistani artist and says she had appealed for Malik’s release after he received his life sentence. Thus, the review’s conclusion rests on the reported provenance of the circulated clip and on distinguishing its unidentified woman from Mullick, not on treating every video of a crying woman as the same recording.