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.
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.
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.
(Source: Truecaller)
Conclusion: The viral post is misleading as such statements has not been released by the NIA.
(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9540511818 , or e-mail it to us at webqoof@thequint.com and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)