Did Delhi Police Receive 35,000 Complaints on Holi? Viral Claim Is Seven Years Old

Social media posts claiming that the Delhi Police received over 35,000 complaints on Holi related to molestation, harassment and quarrels are misleading. BOOM found that the reports are six years old, and the figures this year on the day of Holi were not above the usual average.

The InShorts report that is cited by most social media posts alleges that the complaints included 11 cases of murder, 21 rape and molestation cases, 211 eve teasing cases, 46 instances of road rage, 142 cases of stabbing and around 40 of shootout and firing.

The misleading claim has surfaced as actual incidents of sexual harassment and lawlessness on Holi in Delhi have surfaced on social media, the most notable being the incident where a Japanese woman was groped and harassed by a group of men at Paharganj, Delhi. Read more about it here. In a separate incident, a video shows a group of inebriated men harass an old man before a police PCR van rams into them. A Delhi number plate is visible in the video. (See the video here and read about it here)

The old screenshot is being shared with a news clipping and caption, "What happens on the day of Holi in a constitutional democracy that all kinds of serious criminal cases including murder, rape, exploitation of women, molestation of women are more than 35000 on the day of Holi only in the capital? Well, from this you can get an idea of the crimes committed on the day of Holi in the whole country."

(Original text in Hindi: "संवैधानिक लोकतंत्र में होली के दिन ऐसा क्या हो जाता है कि हत्या, बलात्कार, महिलाओं का शोषण, महिलाओं के साथ छेड़छाड़ समेत तमाम तरह के संगीन अपराधिक मामले केवल राजधानी में ही होली के दिन 35000 से अधिक होते हैं? खैर, इससे आप पूरे देश में होली के दिन होने वाले अपराधों का अंदाजा खुद ही लगा सकते हैं…")

Click here to view the tweet and here for an archive.

Click here to view the tweet and here for an archive.

The post is also circulating on Facebook.

Click here to view.

Click here to view.

FACT-CHECK

BOOM found that the incident is seven years old, and the InShorts report cites an India Today article published in March 2016.

We checked the original InShorts reported, and noticed that it was cited to an India Today article from 2016.

Click here to view.

We also checked the original India Today article that had published a PTI story detailing all the different types of complaints received by the police control room (PCR) on Holi. The story was published seven years ago, on March 27, 2016.

Click here to view.

We also found a tweet by the Delhi Police clarifying that the news was false.

"Some social media handles have tweeted false figures regarding the number of calls to #DelhiPolice on the occasion of Holi. The figures have been picked from a 7 years old news story. Kindly do not spread misinformation without verifying the facts," the caption read.

InShorts also commented under this post and acknowledged how an old report from their platform was being used to spread this misinformation.

BOOM spoke to the DCP Operations, Delhi, Anand Mishra, who confirmed that the number of complaints received by the PCR were almost equal to the daily average. He said, “We classify the calls in two types: matured and actionable. Matured calls include prank calls, blank calls, and calls that don’t require any action from our part. Actionable calls, however, are ones where we send the police to the scene to investigate the matter.”

Mishra revealed that the daily average of calls received by the PCR is 23-24,000 (16,000-17,000 matured, and 6,000-7,000 actionable). “On the day of holi, we received around 19,000 matured and 8,000 actionable complaints (27,000 total), which is only slightly higher than the daily average,” explained Mishra while adding that festivals or special events such as an India-Pakistan match are days when the PCR usually receives a higher volume of complaints.