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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Religion & belief fact checks

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

3,371 published reviews in this topic

Fact CrescendoReligion & belief

Claim: This muslim man not adopted hindu sisters

Publisher’s rating: Partly False

The claim concerned a photograph shared online with a caption saying that a Muslim man in Maharashtra had raised two Hindu sisters and arranged their Hindu weddings. Fact Crescendo’s review says the image and claim were circulating on social media and locates the event in Ahmednagar district. The review investigated whether the man had adopted the sisters, rather than merely repeating the caption. The review describes comparing social-media posts that gave differing accounts, then tracing the claim to a journalist’s tweet and examining a reply disputing the adoption story. It also cites a tweet by Satyajit Tambe, identified in the review as the Maharashtra Congress youth-wing president. The review’s English translation of Tambe’s Marathi post says the sisters’ widowed mother treated the Muslim man as a brother and tied him a rakhi each year; he then performed the maternal-uncle’s role at her daughters’ weddings. On that evidence, the review concludes that the man did not adopt and raise the sisters. Rather, he helped conduct their weddings as a maternal uncle through the bond with their mother. It says that the account was gradually altered as it spread across Marathi, Hindi and English, becoming the unsupported adoption story. The review also notes that Times Now and OpIndia had reported on the incident, but the excerpt does not provide their article text or additional details from those reports.

FACTLYReligion & belief

Video of a massive protest conducted by Muslim groups in West Bengal

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video presented as showing Muslim groups protesting in West Bengal. FACTLY’s review identifies the footage as depicting a protest in Bangladesh, not India, and says the gathering had nothing to do with West Bengal. Its account places the protest in 2017 and describes it as a demonstration against Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya Muslims. The review says it checked visible details in the footage, including a Bangladesh flag and placards naming organizations associated with Bangladesh. It then used reverse-image search to find similar visuals in a YouTube video titled “Islami Andolon Bangladesh enclose Myanmar Embassy.” FACTLY also located a Channel i news video, posted on 13 September 2017, which it says showed similar flags and placards and described a protest near Myanmar’s embassy in Dhaka. As additional corroboration, the review cites a New Indian Express article describing a protest near the Myanmar embassy in Dhaka by at least 15,000 supporters of Islami Andolan Bangladesh. Taken together, the review’s account traces the shared footage to a Bangladesh demonstration about Rohingya Muslims and contradicts its attribution to West Bengal. The supplied excerpt describes similar, rather than exactly identical, visuals in the comparison videos; it does not claim those videos reproduce the precise social-media clip.

FACTLYReligion & belief

Video of a truck with billboards in Israel showing the visuals of Ayodhya Ram Mandir

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video of a truck carrying billboards with Ayodhya Ram Mandir visuals, said to have been filmed in Israel. FACTLY’s investigation identifies the location instead as Sydney, Australia, and specifies the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Sydney. The article’s conclusion rests on matching the truck and its surroundings to Sydney footage and locations, rather than on the billboard imagery alone. FACTLY says reverse-image searches of screenshots from the circulating video returned no results. Its subsequent search for similar billboards found examples in New York’s Times Square and at Blacktown City Council in Sydney. The Sydney billboard had visuals resembling those in the claim video, although the article notes that the Sydney billboard video itself did not show a truck. That distinction matters: the billboard comparison helped identify a lead, but did not by itself establish where the truck video was filmed. The investigation then reports finding the same truck in another video on the Hindu Council of Australia’s Facebook page, citing the same license plate and other similarities. In Sydney billboard footage, a man says the truck began at Swami Narayan Temple, travelled across the city and reached Harris Park. FACTLY also reports that Google Maps showed the same parking lot behind the BAPS temple building as the one visible in the claimed video, and that Google Street View showed the building. Taken together, those reported vehicle and location matches support Sydney—not Israel—as the video’s setting. The supplied excerpt does not include the archived social-media post or the underlying videos, so those materials cannot be independently assessed here.

FACTLYReligion & belief

Video of Muslims opposing the installation of Ganesh statue in Hyderabad and damaging it.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a video said to show Muslims in Hyderabad opposing the installation of a Ganesh statue and damaging it. FACTLY’s review identifies the footage as a fight between two groups and says the police station SHO confirmed that both groups were Hindus and distant relatives, not opposing religious communities. The SHO described a minor scuffle after one group objected to placing the statue in front of their house, while the other argued that it had been installed at that spot for many years. The review reports that the disagreement ended in a compromise and no case was registered. It also distinguishes the statue’s damage from the fight: according to the SHO, the statue was damaged during transport before the scuffle, not during it. These details directly contradict the claim’s central assertions that Muslims were involved and that the fight damaged the statue. FACTLY says it contacted the Moghalpura Police Station SHO to establish what happened. On the evidence reported in the review, the video shows a local dispute between Hindu relatives, rather than the communal incident described in the claim.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturReligion & belief

Religiöse Vorstellungen sollen angeblich für einen Protest in Pakistan verantwortlich sein, bei dem vielfach Bäume ausgerissen wurden. In sozialen Medien verbreitete sich ein Video, in dem Männer zu sehen sind, die frisch gepflanzte Setzlinge mit den Händen aus dem Boden ziehen. «Bäume pflanzen ist gegen den Islam», heißt es als Erklärung dafür in einem Facebook-Posting.

Publisher’s rating: Die Videoszenen sind echt. Der Grund für die Entwurzelung der Bäume ist nach Angaben lokaler Behörden allerdings ein Streit um Landbesitz. Bewohner eines von zwei Gruppen umkämpften Gebiets in Pakistan behaupten, die pakistanische Regierung habe die Bäume ohne ihre Erlaubnis auf privatem Land gepflanzt.

The video showed men in Pakistan pulling newly planted saplings from the ground. A Facebook post presented the act as religiously motivated, claiming that planting trees was against Islam. The review reports that local coverage and statements from district officials instead linked the uprooting to a dispute over the land where the trees had been planted. One group had approved the plantation, while another removed the trees; people in the area said the government had planted them on private land without permission. [S1: “In sozialen Medien verbreitete sich ein Video, in dem Männer zu sehen sind, die frisch gepflanzte Setzlinge mit den Händen aus dem Boden ziehen. «Bäume pflanzen ist gegen den Islam», heißt es als Erklärung dafür in einem Facebook-Posting.”; “Der Grund dafür sind demnach nicht islamische Vorstellungen, sondern ein Streit um das Land, auf dem die Bäume gepflanzt wurden. «Eine der Gruppen hat die Plantage genehmigt; die andere entwurzelte die Bäume», sagte Mahmood Aslam, stellvertretender lokaler Kommissar der Nachrichtenseite «Pakistan Today».”] The incident took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The review says that 3.5 million saplings were planted across Pakistan in a climate campaign on August 9, and local media reported that a group uprooted about 6,000 of the trees in the province. It also cites a post from the deputy commissioner’s Facebook page saying the district administration was investigating and that the incident appeared to stem from a dispute between two tribes. [S1: “Am 9. August wurden 3,5 Millionen Setzlinge bei einer großangelegten Klimaschutz-Kampagne in Pakistan eingepflanzt. Rund 6000 dieser frisch gepflanzten Bäume hat eine Gruppe wütender Männer in der Provinz Khyber Pakhtunkhwa wieder herausgerissen, berichteten lokale Medien.”; “Es scheint, dass der Vorfall auf einen Landstreit zwischen den beiden Stämmen zurückzuführen ist. Die Bezirksverwaltung ermittelt”]

YouturnReligion & belief

மகாராஷ்டிராவில் ஒரு இஸ்லாமிய அண்ணன் தான் வளர்த்த இரண்டு இந்து சகோதரிகளை இந்து முறைப்படி ஒரே நேரத்தில் கல்யாணம் முடித்து கொடுத்துள்ளார் இதுதான் என் நாட்டின் சிறப்பம்சம்.

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

FACTLYReligion & belief

Chamarajanagar SP Divya Sara Thomas has forced a Temple priest to offer pooja to a Jesus photo

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned photos said to show Chamarajanagar SP Divya Sara Thomas making the priest at an Anjaneya Swamy Temple in Kollegal place a Jesus photo in the sanctum and perform pooja to it. FACTLY reports that the photo-related incident did happen, but says the priest clarified that Thomas did not force him to perform pooja. The review says the photo was gifted to her during her visit because she is Christian, and that the priest apologized if his actions had hurt Hindus. [S1: “A few photos are being shared widely on social media with a claim that Chamarajanagar Superintendent of Police (SP) Divya Sara Thomas has forced the priest of an Anjaneya Swamy Temple in Kollegal to place the Jesus photo inside the Sanctorum of the temple and offer pooja to it.”] [S1: “The temple priest has clarified that the SP has not forced him to do pooja to the Jesus photo. As she is Christian, she was gifted with the Jesus photo on her visit to the temple. The priest apologized if any Hindu was hurt due to his actions.”] To check the claim, the review says it searched for information about the incident and found Kannada news articles, including one in Prajavani. It reports that the event took place on 5 August 2020, when Thomas was on rounds and was invited into the temple. The review also cites the priest’s clarification, a statement from the Karnataka State Police Department’s fact-check portal, and Thomas’s account to The News Minute. These sources support the distinction between the real temple visit and the unsupported allegation that she brought the photo or compelled the priest to worship it. [S1: “When we looked for information regarding the incident in the photo, some Kannada news articles were found in the search results. In the ‘Prajavani’ article, it can be read that the incident in the photos took place on 05 August 2020 (the day foundation stone of Ayodhya Ram Mandir was laid).”] [S1: “To sum it up, while the incident of placing Jesus photo inside the temple sanctorum is true, SP Divya Sara Thomas has neither brought the Jesus photo with her nor forced the temple priest to offer pooja to it.”]