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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

15-year-old Muslim boy was set on fire by four people in U.P.’s Chandauli district for not chanting ‘Jai Shree Ram’.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a Facebook post alleging that four people set a 15-year-old Muslim boy on fire in Chandauli district, Uttar Pradesh, because he refused to chant “Jai Shree Ram.” The review’s account distinguishes that viral version from the incident investigated by police: it says that an injured boy and his family had alleged that others set him ablaze, but police found the allegation baseless and said he had set himself on fire. To check the post, the review traced a screenshot in its comments to an ANI News tweet using Twitter Advanced Search on ANI News’s account. The tweet described the boy as 17-year-old Khalid, reported the family’s allegation, and also relayed the Chandauli Superintendent of Police’s account that the boy gave statements found false in the investigation and that an eyewitness saw him set himself ablaze. This is a discrepancy with the viral post’s stated age of 15; the review does not explain the difference. The review also cites a Uttar Pradesh Police tweet containing a video of the Superintendent of Police speaking about the incident. The police described the report of a Muslim boy being torched for refusing religious slogans as baseless, fabricated, and malicious. On that investigation, the review concluded that the claim was false. It adds that news outlets had initially reported the injured boy’s and family’s account and later corrected themselves, but the excerpt does not identify those outlets or detail their corrections.

Fact CrescendoCrime & justice

Claim: Five- year old girl missing from Vellore

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a social-media post identifying a five-year-old girl named Gayathri as missing and saying that she was a government-school student who had come on a visit from Vellore. The post urged people to share her photograph and gave a phone number. The review found that the post supplied no date for when she supposedly went missing or destination for the visit: “ஃபேஸ்புக் பதிவில் அந்த மாணவி எப்போது காணாமல் போனார், வேலூரில் இருந்து எந்த ஊருக்கு வந்தார் என்று எந்த தகவலும் இல்லை.” The reviewers tried the number in the post but said the call would not connect. They also searched for news about a schoolgirl missing during a trip from Vellore and reported finding none. Those checks did not independently identify the girl, so the review also used reverse-image search to trace where the same photograph had appeared. It found that the image had been associated with different missing-child accounts, including a June 24, 2019, post describing a girl missing in Rawalpindi, Pakistan: “(பாகிஸ்தான்) ராவல்பென்டியில் இந்த சிறுமி காணாமல் போனார்.” The review further reports that the photograph had been shared on June 12 in a post saying the girl had returned home, with commenters identifying her as being from Bihar and saying she had been found on the day she went missing. It also describes a July 26 post claiming she was from Chennai and was at a police station in Mangaluru. These conflicting locations and accounts do not support the Vellore identification. The review concluded that the photographed girl was not from Vellore and that the post’s claim was false: “நம்முடைய ஆய்வில், இந்த சிறுமி வேலூரைச் சேர்ந்தவர் இல்லை என்பதும், சில மாதங்களாகவே இந்த சிறுமியின் புகைப்படம் சமூக ஊடகங்களில் காணவில்லை என்ற அறிவிப்புடன் பகிரப்பட்டு வருவதும் உறுதி செய்யப்பட்டுள்ளது.”