Fact Check: Government Is Not Giving Rs 7,500 as Lockdown Relief Fund, the Viral Post is Fake
The viral claim is fake. Government is not giving Rs 7,500 to every citizen as Lockdown relief fund.
- By Vishvas News
- Updated: September 23, 2020
New Delhi (Vishvas Team). A viral post on social media claims that government is providing a free relief fund of Rs 7500 to every citizen. The post is shared along with a link to avail the fund. We received this viral claim for fact check on Vishvas WhatsApp chatbot (+91 95992 99372).
Vishvas News investigation revealed the claim is fake. Government is not giving any Rs 7,500 to every citizen as in the viral claim.
Claim
Facebook user Salim Aldah Mohamed Salim shared a viral post on a page named Whatsapp Group Links. The post reads, “The Government has finally approved and have started giving out free Rs.7,500 Relief Funds to each citizen. Below is how to claim and get yours credit instantly as I have just did now https://funds4covid-19.com/.”
The archived version of the post can be seen here .
Investigation
We searched on the Internet for authentic news reports about the claim. We could not find any government order copy or media reports. However, we found some media reports published in April where Congress demanded the government to transfer Rs 7,500 to all Jan Dhan accounts.
We found the viral post on the Meghalaya Police website https://megpolice.gov.in/rumours-circulated-social-media-fg-has-finally-approved-and-have-started-giving-out-free-rs-7500 Meghalaya Police have alerted people not to believe this rumour.
We clicked on the link https://funds4covid-19.com/ shared along with the viral post. We found that the link asked to share this message in 7 WhatsApp groups to get Rs 7500. We spotted many comments below the post where people confirm that they received the money.
We shared this message in 7 WhatsApp groups as directed. We found a new dialogue box that popped in our screen with web link information iqbroker. We could confirm that this link is for promotion of this website and not for availing Rs 7,500.
When searched this website on who.is domain to identify the authenticity of the link in claim. We found that this webpage has been registered only on 13 August 2020. However, other information related to the domain were missing.
Vishvas News sent this link to cyber expert Ayush Bhardwaj for analysis. Bhardwaj told us that this link is only a way to promote a website and increase the number of clicks. He clarified to us that by registering on this, no one will get money from the government as this link is not linked to any government website.
FB page Whatsapp Group Links is one among the several pages that shared this viral post. Social scanning of this page revealed that it has 4,46,035 followers.
Conclusion: The viral claim is fake. Government is not giving Rs 7,500 to every citizen as Lockdown relief fund.