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Images Of Recovered Ornament Stolen From Showroom In Tamil Nadu Falsely Shared As IT Raid On Tirupati Temple Trustee J Shankar Reddy
Tamil Nadu, 3 July 2022 11:26 AM GMT
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The viral images are of when Tamil Nadu police recovered jewellery stolen from a showroom in Vellore.
A set of images has gone viral across WhatsApp, claiming that 10Kg gold and 10 crores of cash were recovered after an Income Tax raid on Tirupati temple board member J. Shankar Reddy. The viral images show a huge quantity of seized gold ornaments and cash. The post written in Gujarati when translated in English reads, "One of the 14 trustees of the Tirupati temple, J. Shankar Reddy. In the income tax raid on his house, 10 kg of cash and 10 kg of gold worth Rs 10 crore and only 2000 notes were seized. Now think that..What will be the total of the remaining 12 trustees?
The Logical Indian received several messages on our WhatsApp fact check no. +91-6364000343 requesting to fact check the claim.
Screengrabs of requests received on the TLI WhatsApp fact check number
This post also viral back in December 2021 with a similar claim.
Claim:
Viral images show gold and cash recovered after an Income Tax raid on Tirupati temple board member J Sekhar Reddy.
Fact Check:
The Logical Indian Fact Check team verified the claim and found it to be false. The viral video is from Tamil Nadu, where police recovered jewellery stolen from a showroom in Vellore, Tamil Nadu.
During the initial investigation, we conducted a keyframe analysis on the video using InVid's Keyframe tool. Following a reverse image search, we found the still of the viral video in a report of the Indian Express dated December 22 2021. According to the report, Tamil Nadu police recovered 15.9 kg of stolen gold and diamonds worth Rs 8 crore from a burial ground in Odukathur after a burglary took place at a popular jewellery showroom in Vellore on December 15.
We also found several other media reports on this incident. According to the report of the Hindu, Tamil Nadu police arrested T. K. Raman, 23, a resident of Kuchipalayam village near Pallikonda. The accused buried the stolen jewellery in the graveyard. The robbers wore a Lion mask to conceal their identity while they robbed the shop.
Who is J. Sekar alias Sekar Reddy
We did a keyword search regarding Sekar Reddy and found several media reports related to the raid conducted by Income Tax officials and recovering Rs 106.52 crore in cash and 127 kg of gold from the premises of Reddy and his close associates on December 8, 2016. IT officials also recovered ten crores of new notes from the possession of the Reddys while thousands of people were queuing up in banks and ATMs after PM Modi announced demonetisation in India. After the raid, he was removed from the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) board. Later, a special CBI court released him as there was no evidence, and he was specially invited to be a TTD board member.
Our investigation shows that the viral images are from Tamil Nadu, where police recovered jwellery stolen from a showroom in Vellore, Tamil Nadu and it falsely linked it with a claim that the video is of an income tax department raid at Tirupati temple Board member J Sekhar Reddy's house. Hence, the viral claim is false.
If you have any news that you believe needs to be fact-checked, please email us at factcheck@thelogicalindian.com or WhatsApp at 6364000343.
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