A post accompanying a news clip which states that Hyderabad traffic police is organising a mega Lok Adalat during October 4-7, through which people can clear their pending traffic challans by paying only 50% of the amount, is being shared widely across all social media platforms. Through this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Hyderabad traffic police is organising a mega Lok Adalat during October 4-7; people can clear their pending traffic challans by paying only 50% of the amount.
Fact: Hyderabad traffic police through their official social media handles clarified that they are not organising any traffic Lok Adalat during October 4-7, 2021. They have rated the viral news clip as fake. The viral news clip is at least five years old. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Google search yielded the ‘newsmahal’ story which reported about the traffic Lok Adalat. However, this news article dates back to 2017. The viral post is nothing but a screenshot of this news clip. However, a Telugu regional daily carried a similar news recently in its Hyderabad district edition, which could be the source of the viral news and the revival of the old English news clip.
As the news went viral on social media, Hyderabad traffic police through their official social media handles clarified that the viral news about Hyderabad traffic police organising a traffic Lok Adalat is fake. Hyderabad traffic police through a Facebook post shared both the viral English news clip and the Telugu news clip and rated them as fake. Their clarification further warned that ‘a legal action will be initiated against those who post or forward this fake message.’
While there have been instances in the past (2016 & 2017) wherein Hyderabad traffic police organised a Traffic Lok Adalat, through which they offered 50% off on the pending traffic challans, there is no such Lok Adalat presently being organised by Hyderabad traffic police between October 4-7.
News articles which published the clarification of the Hyderabad traffic police regarding the viral news can be read here. Hence, from these, we can infer that an old news clip about traffic Lok Adalat is being shared as latest.
To sum it up, Hyderabad traffic police is not organising any traffic Lok Adalat during Oct 4-7 of 2021.
