Old & unrelated images shared as a recent incident involving a Grama Sevaka from Jaffna Poonakary

A photo is being shared widely among the Sri Lankan Tamil community, claimed to be of a woman working in Grama Sevaka office in Poonakary, Jaffna, who was caught having an illicit affair with the Grama Sevaka.

However, Fact Crescendo found that the photo being shared is from an old and unrelated incident and while there have been few reports to police in the past no such incidents were reported recently.

Viral Posts Claim…

The summary of the claims, which were shared widely in Tamil, is as follows. A Grama Sevaka working in a GS office in Poonakary, Jaffna used to bring his female co-worker to his office after work and the two would get intimate in the office. People from the area who noticed that the Grama Sevaka bringing a female officer after work hours and spending time together locked in the office, besieged the Grama Sevaka office and found Grama Sevaka getting intimate with the woman. The two were caught in the middle of the intercourse, following which the Grama Sevaka managed to escape leaving the female officer behind.

These claims were accompanied by an image as shown below in which a naked woman was being dragged on the road.

Facebook Link | Archived Link

Fact Check

We researched the photo being shared on Facebook using the Google Reverse Image Tool. Around March 18, 2020, several websites had published news reports about the incident relating to the concerned image. The incident was believed to have taken place in Thotalanga area in Colombo as seen in the reports below.

Daily Mirror | Archived

When we contacted the police stations in Poonakary, they were told us that they did not receive any complaints regarding such an incident.

We forwarded this claim to the Officer in charge of the entire Kilinochchi Division as well. He confirmed that the area police station had received number of complained few year back regarding this Grama Sevaka, after some arguments between the Grama Sevaka and his wife. However, he said no such complain was reported to police in recent months.

Kilinochchi Division OIC also contacted the Divisional Secretary to which the Grama Sevaka reports. Divisional Secretary had also confirmed that such an incident had not been reported recently.

Conclusion:

Our investigation revealed that the photo shared in connection with the alleged misconduct of the Grama Sevaka in Poonakary was from a March 2020 incident from Colombo. In addition, such an alleged misconduct of the Grama Sevaka in Poonakary had not been reported to the area police recently, although there had been a few complaints in the past.

We request our readers not to share such unverified news reports, photos and videos with others without confirmation.

In such cases, contact our WhatsApp hotline (+94771514696)