Rumour

A message is going viral that says Delhi Police Commissioner A.K Mittal has issued an important notice asking people to remove their photos from WhatsApp profile photo section as their photos could be misused by hackers belonging to terror organisation ISIS.

This message was sent to us by one of our readers on Facebook.

According to the message, WhatsApp CEO has made an appeal to not keep any profile photo for the next 20-25 days. It is also being claimed that WhatsApp engineers would help people to keep them safe. 

Here is the viral message:

IMPORTANT NOTICE
(??????)

Hi Friends

Hi Friends Jis kisiki bhi whatsapp pe profile pic khud ki ho to jald-se-jald badal do. Kyuki whatsapp pe ISIS apne Aatanki gatividhiyon ke liye or kuch aise hackers aaye hai jnke paas aapka whatsapp no hai. Wo log us profile photo ka galat use kar rahe hai. Whatsapp ke CEO ne request ki hai ki agle 20-25 din tk khud ki profile photo na rkhe. Whatsapp ke engineers aapko safe ke liye aapke saath co-operate karenge. Is msg ko aage forward karo, khas krke ladkiyon ke liye. 
___________
Thank You.
___________
A.K. Mittal(IPS)
9849436632
Commissioner Delhi.
.
Pls forward to all your frnds ones too..

Our Investigation

We searched for the given number on True Caller and found that the number is saved by the name of Arshad Ali (Arshad Ali Ak Mital Ips Dehli) and the number is from Andra Pradesh.

When we searched for it we found that this is an old hoax which has been debunked by various fact checkers in the past. ABP News had contacted Delhi Police and AK Mittal in June 2016 and found that AK Mittal was IG in NIA. He was not a police commissioner in 2016.

IPS Mittal knows about the message but said he had not issued it.

Fact

The viral message asking people to remove WhatsApp profile pic due to ISIS scare is false and old one which was viral in 2016 as well. A.K Mittal had not issued any advisory like this.