Misinformation often goes viral on social media. A post about India’s premier agency NIA (National Investigation Agency) is going viral. It is written in this post that NIA has issued a helpline number. If anyone raises objectionable slogans, then a complaint can be made by calling on these numbers. Mobile number, landline number, and e-mail id have been given in this post.
Sharing this post, a user wrote- “NIA issued the number. A special number to report terror threats on social media, i.e. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp. Whoever is seen shouting slogans like ‘Sir Tan Se Juda’, in a Facebook comment or anywhere on Twitter, or threatens you directly take a screenshot, copy the link and call this number. Then you will be given an official mail where you have to send everything. 011-24368800”
At the same time, many other users have shared this post.
To check the viral claim, we did a simple search on Google. We found a tweet by ANI news agency on 17 September 2021. According to this tweet, the helpline number was issued by the NIA to prevent any user on social media to promote the ideology of terrorist organization ISIS or to extremist youth.
National Investigation Agency (NIA) has issued a hotline number -011-24368800- to lodge complaints against people propagating ISIS ideology on social media or trying to radicalise youth.
— ANI (@ANI) September 17, 2021
At the same time, we found a press release in this context on the website of NIA. In which it has been clarified that the NIA has not issued any such message. The NIA has termed this message as misleading.
Conclusion:
Our fact check proves that NIA has not issued any such message. Hence the claim being made by social media users is misleading.
Claim Review- NIA has issued helpline number for controversial slogans
Claimed by- Social media users
Fact Check – Misleading
