In the wake of crimes against women Lighthouse Journalism found a post being widely shared on social media platforms. The post mentions that the police have started a new scheme for women wishing to go home between 10 pm to 6 pm, especially for the women who are alone. There were two helpline numbers given in the post, 1091 and 7837018555. The post also mentioned that upon calling on these numbers, a police van from the nearest police station will safely drop them at their home. The post further mentioned that in case of emergency women can either text or give a missed call to these numbers. The post highlighted that the facility is available across the country.
Claim:
X user Santosh Kumar shared the post on his profile.
Check the archive version of the post.
Other users too are sharing the same post.
Investigation:
We started our investigation by a Google keyword search using the two helpline numbers shared in the post.
We ran an X keyword search on the helpline number ‘7837018555’.
We found a post from 2019, that mentioned a free ride scheme for women in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh. The news report shared along with the post mentioned both the helpline numbers.
We also found a news report about the same.
We also found a news report from 2019 in the Republic that mentioned the places that offered free ride schemes to women. The report mentioned, Sikkim, Punjab and Chittoor police are offering free rides to women at night. The report also mentioned at the end that Nagpur police, Karnataka police and Ludhiana police are among the others to have started this initiative.
We also found a post on X by ANI Digital that mentioned: Nagpur police to provide free ride to stranded women from 9 pm to 5 am
Nagpur City Police handle too had posted about the same in 2019.
During the investigation we did not find any PAN India helpline number that offers free rides to women in the night. However there are a few local police initiatives across the county in different states, with different helpline numbers.
Conclusion: The helpline numbers for local police initiatives are being inaccurately promoted as contact numbers for free ride schemes for women nationwide. This viral claim is misleading.
