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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

FACTLYReligion & belief

Wresting video of godman Bageshwar Dham Sarkar

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The post identified a video of a wrestler defeating an opponent as showing Dhirendra Krishna Shastri, the head of Bageshwar Dham temple in Madhya Pradesh, wrestling. The investigation reports that the wrestler in the footage is instead Ghullam Hussain Pathan, a Malakhra or Malakhro sportsman from Pakistan’s Sindh province, and says the video has no connection to Shastri. To trace the footage, the review says it used reverse image searches of screenshots from the video. That search surfaced similar footage published by Pakistan-based Sachal TV. The channel’s title identified the wrestler as Ghullam Hussain Pathan, and the review gives the upload date as 6 November 2020. The review also describes comparing images of the wrestler in the clip with images of Shastri; it says the comparison showed they were not the same person. As further corroboration, the review reports finding similar wrestling videos on Pathan’s YouTube and Facebook accounts, as well as interviews with him. Taken together, the reported image search, identification in the earlier Sachal TV upload, and comparison with Shastri address the central question of who appears in the claimed video. The review concludes that the footage shows the Pakistani wrestler, not Bageshwar Dham Sarkar.

FACTLYReligion & belief

isuals of the people of Pakistan vandalising a mosque in Karachi for its iron and bricks

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The post attributed footage of men damaging a mosque in Karachi to people stripping it for iron and bricks, allegedly because of Pakistan’s economic crisis. FACTLY says the video does show an incident in Karachi, but identifies the damaged building as an Ahmadi mosque in Saddar and says suspected members of Tehreek-e-Labbaik carried out the vandalism. That directly contradicts the post’s account of who was responsible and why. For its check, FACTLY reports using an internet keyword search that led to news articles containing the same visuals. It says those reports described suspected Tehreek-e-Labbaik members vandalising a mosque in Karachi’s Saddar. The review does not present evidence that the mosque was being dismantled for its materials; instead, it describes the economic-crisis explanation as a fabricated story added to the video.

YouturnReligion & belief

தெலுங்கானாவில் தேவநோரு கிராமத்தில் பாதிரியார் சிவ தீட்சையை பற்றியும் சிவனை பற்றியும் மிகக் கேவலமாக பிரச்சாரம் செய்தான் சிவனடியார்கள் போட்டு வெளுக்கிறார்கள் தமிழகம் இப்படி மாறுமா?

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

FACTLYReligion & belief

Recent video of Muslims disrupting a Hindu rally in Maharashtra

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a viral video presented as recent footage of Muslims disrupting a Hindu rally in Maharashtra, amid a large Hindu Jan Aakrosh Morcha rally in Mumbai. The investigation found that the video instead showed a verbal confrontation during the Hanuman Jayanti Shobha Yatra in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, in April 2022. Its conclusion is that the footage was old and unrelated to Maharashtra. To trace the video, the review says it reverse-image-searched screenshots and found a Facebook post dated 22 April 2022 with similar visuals. That post described them as footage from the Nellore procession. The review also found a News 18 article sharing a photograph with similar visuals, and referred to other reports published in April 2022 about the Nellore incident. Those reports placed the confrontation as the procession passed a mosque on Court Compound Main Road in Nellore. According to the review’s account, rally participants raised Hindu slogans, increased the sound-system volume and sounded vehicle horns; people gathered at the mosque responded with “Allahu Akbar” slogans, and a Muslim participant allegedly made an obscene gesture. Police officials denied BJP claims that stones were thrown. This context supports the review’s distinction between a confrontation in Andhra Pradesh in April 2022 and the video’s misleading presentation as recent footage from Maharashtra.

FACTLYReligion & belief

Photo shows a shadow of the Holy Mary getting cast on the statue of ‘Our lady of Fatima,’ which was brought from Italy to Bangalore by flight

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The post claimed that the photo showed a shadow of Mary cast around the statue of Our Lady of Fatima when it arrived in Bangalore after being flown from Italy. FACTLY’s review identifies a different event as the setting for the image: in October 2016, the International Pilgrim Virgin Statue of Our Lady of Fatima was flown to the Autonomous Region of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. The review says the viral picture’s plane and statue resemble visuals from reports and videos of that event, and concludes that the image is not from Bangalore. To check the image’s provenance, the review describes searching for information about the viral claim, finding two 2016 news articles, and comparing their visuals with the viral photo and videos from Em TV online. It reports that one news article included a close-up of the statue that resembles the apparent shadow in the viral image. The review suggests that the viral image could have been made by combining that close-up with another photo from the event and reducing the close-up’s opacity. This is presented as a possible explanation for the effect, not as a confirmed account of how the image was edited. The review also searched for information about a recent statue arrival in Bangalore and found a Sacred Heart Church, Bangalore video showing the arrival of an Our Lady of Fatima statue from Portugal. That is separate from the photo’s identified 2016 Bougainville setting; the review does not treat the Bangalore video as evidence that the viral photo was taken there.

YouturnReligion & belief

100 ஆண்டுகள் பழமையான இந்து கோவில்களை இடித்ததில் திமுகவினர் பெருமை கொள்கின்றனர். இந்த காரணத்திற்காக தான் இந்துசமய அறநிலையத்துறை கலைக்கப்பட வேண்டும் என்றும், அரசாங்கத்தின் பிடியில் இருந்து கோவில்களை விடுவிக்க வேண்டும் என்றும் நாங்கள் விரும்புகிறோம்.

Publisher’s rating: Misleading