NIA Helpline to Report Muslims for ‘Anti-National’ Acts Is Misleading!

Fact-Check: NIA has not released any such statement.

(Source: The Quint) 

A viral post claiming that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has launched a helpline for reporting Muslims allegedly involved in activities “against the country’s interests,” including so-called love jihad, terror plots, and shrine construction, is being shared on social media.

The post listed numbers and an email address for people to make the such complaints.

An archive of the post can be found here. 

(Source: X/Screenshot) 

(Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)

Is the claim true?: No, the claim is false as we did not find any such posts or press releases on NIA's social media pages or websites.

What we found: At first, we ran a relevant keyword search to find if such a press release or statement had been released by the NIA.

• However, we did not find any credible evidence on its social media pages or the website.

• We then cross-checked the numbers listed in the viral posts to determine whether they were official or not.

• Team WebQoof ran the numbers on the internet and were led to news reports from 2014 which stated these numbers. As per a report by the Deccan Herald from 2014, which noted that the NIA had announced cash rewards for the then accused in the Burdwan blast in West Bengal.

Here is the excerpt from the news report.

(Source: Deccan Herald) 

• We, then, reached out to one of the numbers which was listed as a 'WhatsApp' number in the viral posts.

• Team WebQoof was told that the number belonged to the NIA control room. We were also told that there had been no such press release or directive by the agency for people to report specifically against Muslims.

• We, also, checked these numbers on Truecaller and found that they were listed as NIA contacts.

Here are the results given by Truecaller. 

Here are the results given by Truecaller. 

Conclusion: The viral post is misleading as such statements has not been released by the NIA.

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