Scenes of a Recent robbery in Wellawatte ? (VIDEO) Find out the facts..
As the economic crisis continues to intensify in Sri Lanka, we have noticed reports on robberies from various parts of the country, during the last several days. However, there have been some misleading posts also, in this regard, especially shared among social media users. This is our investigation regarding a CCTV footage, which went viral […]
As the economic crisis continues to intensify in Sri Lanka, we have noticed reports on robberies from various parts of the country, during the last several days. However, there have been some misleading posts also, in this regard, especially shared among social media users.
This is our investigation regarding a CCTV footage, which went viral on social media claiming to be a robbery in an apartment house in Wellawatta area.
Social Media Posts
A CCTV footage of a house was circulated on social media with the caption "Wellawatta Robbery"
The video was spread virally on WhatsApp also.
Fact Check
We investigated whether CCTV footage of a recent robbery in an apartment building in Wellawatta was reported through the mainstream media in Sri Lanka. But we didn't find any such video aired on major news channels.
On careful observation of the CCTV footage shared on social media, it can be seen that the CCTV footage is not of a recent incident, but of July 07, 2021.
We did a reverse image search on the video frames we obtained from the viral video, purported to be a burglary in Wellawatte. The results showed that this video was not a recent incident in Sri Lanka, rather it was a robbery that took place back in July 2021 in Uttam Nagar, West Delhi, India.
The CCTV footage was posted to Twitter on 7th July 2021 by Jitender Sharma, Editor-in-Chief, Crime Division, Zee News Channel.
The Times of India website had reported that 04 armed men broke into a house of a realtor and looted lakhs of rupees worth of cash and jewelry. The news can be read from here | Archived.
Misleading claims related to this footage were shared in many parts of India as well and Fact Crescendo- Marathi team’s fact check on such claims can be read from here.
The news reports said that the robbers had entered the house in the guise of electricians. Also, three people involved in the robbery were arrested by the Indian police, just a few days after the incident. During the police investigation, it was revealed that a person working under the owner of the house, had provided the information to the robbers about the whereabouts of jewelry and money. Media reports on this can be read from here and here.
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Conclusion
Our investigation shows that the CCTV footage claiming to be a robbery in an apartment building in Wellawatta area was in fact not an incident from Sri Lanka. The scenes were CCTV footage of a robbery which took place in West Delhi, India in July, 2021.
Title:Scenes of a Recent robbery in Wellawatte ? (VIDEO) Find out the facts..
Fact Check By: Kalana KrishanthaResult: False
