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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.

6,854 published reviews in this topic

FACTLYCrime & justice

A Muslim woman and her daughter were deliberately hit by a car in UP due to Islamophobia

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

FACTLY examined a social-media video said to show a car deliberately hitting a Muslim woman and her daughter in Uttar Pradesh because of Islamophobia. Its review locates the depicted incident in Rasra, Ballia district, and reports that the victims were Usha Devi and her daughter Pushpanjali, aged 12—not Muslims. That identification directly contradicts the claim’s description of the victims and its communal framing. The review concludes that the post falsely presents the accident as having a communal angle. (S1) The review describes how it traced the video: screenshots were checked with Google Reverse Image Search, which led to a News 18 UP Uttarakhand video about the incident. FACTLY says that video indicated the location was Rasra, and that searches using the location and related keywords found news reports. The review cites The Week’s identification of the victims and also says their names appeared in the incident’s FIR. (S1) Some social-media commenters reportedly said the woman in the video wore a burqa. FACTLY counters that claim by pointing to videos and photographs posted by local news portals, which it says show that she was not wearing one. The review’s evidence therefore challenges the claim’s identification of the victims and its religious interpretation of the footage; the supplied excerpt does not describe separate evidence establishing the driver’s intent. (S1)

Deutsche Presse-AgenturCrime & justice

Op Facebook circuleren waarschuwingen voor een nieuwe babbeltruc: criminelen zouden aanbellen bij mensen, doen alsof zij van de gemeente zijn, beschermende maskers aanbieden met het verzoek die ook meteen even te passen. De maskers zijn vergiftigd, de burgers raken bedwelmd. De criminelen kunnen dan hun slag slaan en het huis leegroven.

Publisher’s rating: De berichten zijn nepnieuws, volgens de politie zijn in heel Nederland geen aangiftes van deze strekking bekend. Het verhaal is overgewaaid en overgenomen uit Engelstalige landen waar het al eerder circuleerde.

The warning described a supposed burglary ploy in which criminals would pose as municipal workers, offer protective masks, and ask residents to try them on; the masks would allegedly incapacitate people so the criminals could rob their homes. The review investigated this specific warning circulating on Facebook, rather than reporting a confirmed Dutch incident. It says police had received no reports of this new scam anywhere in the Netherlands by 22 April 2020. [S1: “Op Facebook circuleren waarschuwingen voor een nieuwe babbeltruc: criminelen zouden aanbellen bij mensen, doen alsof zij van de gemeente zijn, beschermende maskers aanbieden met het verzoek die ook meteen even te passen. De maskers zijn vergiftigd, de burgers raken bedwelmd. De criminelen kunnen dan hun slag slaan en het huis leegroven.”; “Daar bleek dat er tot 22 april 2020 geen enkele aangifte is binnengekomen van dit soort nieuwe babbeltruc, waar dan ook in Nederland.”] The review also traced the warning’s wording to English-language social-media posts that were already circulating. It reports that a police spokesperson in The Hague considered the story a hoax and checked with the national information platform, which brings together information from regional police forces. The evidence described therefore supports treating the viral warning as unsubstantiated, not as an account of a verified Dutch crime. [S1: “Zij heeft de vraag neergelegd bij het landelijke informatieplatform, waar de informatie van alle regionale politiekorpsen in Nederland bij elkaar komt.”; “Ook blijkt uit onderzoek dat het verhaal ‘een op een is overgenomen’ uit Engelstalige postings die al circuleerden op sociale media.”]

FACTLYCrime & justice

Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh has said that there is no 'Hindu' among those arrested in the Palghar lynching incident

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a statement attributed to Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh about people arrested after the Palghar lynching. The review says the claim circulating on social media was that he had said there was no Hindu among those arrested. It places the incident on 16 April 2020, when a mob in Palghar district beat three men to death on suspicion that they were thieves; two of the men were Hindu sadhus. The review also reports that the state government had arrested more than 100 people allegedly involved.

FACTLYCrime & justice

Image of a Muslim boy, Rizwan, who had died after being beaten up by Tanda (UP) Police

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned an image said to show Rizwan, a Muslim boy who had died after Tanda Police beat him when he went out to buy supplies during lockdown. The review reports that Rizwan’s father alleged he had died from injuries caused by police thrashing three days earlier. It also identifies a police video posted on 19 April 2020 in which Ambedkarnagar district Police said they had examined CCTV footage and found no occurrence of the alleged incident. The review says the postmortem report did not mention injuries from a police lathi charge. (S1: “Rizwan Ahmed, a daily wage worker, had died in Ambedkarnagar district of UP and his father alleged that Rizwan had died due to the injuries suffered as a result of the thrashing by Tanda town Police three days earlier.”; “in a video enclosed in the tweet by Ambedkarnagar district Police on 19 April 2020, the Police said that they have examined the CCTV footage and have not found the occurrence of any such incident as alleged by the family members of Rizwan and the postmortem report had no mention of injuries due to lathi charge on the deceased’s body.”) The review describes a different cause of death in the police account: the postmortem reportedly noted infection in the lungs and heart, as well as injuries attributed to a motorcycle fall. It says a local doctor confirmed that account. In the recording of the doctor’s statements uploaded by police, the doctor said a family member had sought medicine after Rizwan had met with an accident, and that the doctor later saw wounds on Rizwan’s legs. These details support the review’s conclusion that the image was of Rizwan but the accompanying account of how he died was contradicted by the evidence it describes. (S1: “the postmortem report had no mention of injuries due to lathi charge on the deceased’s body. Also, the Police have said that, in the report, it was mentioned that the deceased had an infection in lungs & heart and injuries due to falling from a motorcycle, which was confirmed by a local doctor.”; “the doctor has said that five to six days ago, Rizwan’s family member approached him for medicine saying Rizwan had met with an accident.”)