Old Incident of Man Calling Police to 'Order Beer' in Telangana Viral as Recent

We found that the incident of a 22-year-old man calling the police and ordering beer in Telangana is from 2022.

Fact-Check | The incident is old and is being falsely shared as recent.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

An image which shows several police personnel is being shared to claim that a "22-year-old man from Telangana was booked for dialing 100 and ordering chilled beer."

An archive of the post can be found here.

We received the viral image on our WhatsApp tipline as well. (Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)

What is the truth?: While there are news reports indicating that a man was arrested for calling the police and ordering liquor, the incident took place in May 2022 and is not recent.

• Moreover, the image used in the viral claim could be traced back to at least September 2013.

News reports: We performed a keyword search on Google and found a news report published in The News Minute.

• The report mentioned that a 22-year-old man identified as J Madhu, was booked for dialing 100 late in the night and ordering two bottles of beer.

• It said that the incident took place in Vikarabad. The accused allegedly called the police saying he was in danger. However, when the policemen reached the village, the accused ordered the police to get him beer.

• Madhu was in an inebriated condition and told the police that since all the wine shops are closed, he had to take the help of the police. The 22-year-old man even argued that police is required to help people in need.

The report was published on 11 May 2022.

• Several similar news reports were also published by India Today, News18, and Deccan Chronicle.

Details about the image: A reverse image search led us to a news report published on India TV, which carried the same image.

• The report was last updated on 1 September 2013 and talked about the death of two policemen, who were killed in an accident in Junagadh district.

• Further, we found that the same image has been used in multiple news reports.

• We could not independently verify the location or context of the image.

The image was shared in the report published in 2013.

Conclusion: It is clear that an old incident of a man calling the police and ordering liquor in Telangana is being shared as recent.

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