Drunk man dressed as woman falsely believed to child-lifter and beaten in Jodhpur

A video of a man dressed as a woman, who is being escorted by the police, is doing rounds on social media. The message posted along with the video claims that a child-kidnapping gang is active in Jodhpur and an alleged chid-lifter was nabbed by the police. Facebook page ‘Blue City Jodhpur’ shared the same video with the claim mentioned above. In the video, a woman can be heard alleging that the man had attempted to kidnap her child.

One Pawan Sankhla shared the video with a similar narrative.

The same video has also been published on YouTube.

Fact-check

Upon closely looking at the video, Alt News found that it was shot at Jodhpur railway station.

With a keyword search on Google, we found a report published by ETV Bharat, according to which, the said incident took place on August 30, 2019. As per passers-by, a child’s mother had raised an alarm after seeing her child being air-lifted by the man, and subsequently, the crowd nearby beat him up, believing him to be a child-lifter, and later handed him to the police. In their investigation, however, GRP police didn’t find any such incident taking place.

Speaking to the media outlet, GRP police officer Ravindra Bothra said that the person used to beg for alms for a living at the railway station. No incident of child-kidnapping on Jodhpur railway station has come to light, he added.

A News18 report gives the same details as ETV Bharat while adding that the police investigation found that the man was inebriated and had fallen victim to child-kidnapping rumours.

Alt News contacted Government Railway Police (GRP) Jodhpur. Duty Officer Ramdin also confirmed that the man wasn’t a child-kidnapper. “[In the video] home guards appointed by the Railway Protection Force were escorting the man. He was dressed as a woman and was drunk. So they had brought him to the police. He is not a child kidnapper, we spoke to his family. He is a resident of Nagaur district. We were told by the family that this man has a habit of dressing up as a woman since childhood.” We were also told that man was produced before the court for disturbing the peace in a drunken state. He has been sent to jail, stated the ETV Bharat report.

In conclusion, a video of a man dressed as a woman, detained by the police, is being shared on social media with false child-kidnapping rumours.