Images of people falsely accused of child-kidnapping shared to fuel the rumour - Alt News
Jignesh Patel
22nd August 2019 / 11:25 pm / Last updated: 23rd August 2019
“बच्चा चोर गैंग आज पकड़ा गया ऐसा क्या और भी हो सकता है आपके आसपास के इलाके में कृपया ध्यान से देखिए और अपने बच्चे की सुरक्षा के लिए ध्यान रखिए अपने बच्चों का स्कूल जाते हुए आते हुए आसपास के ऐसा कोई अजनबी व्यक्ति उनके पास ना हो और उनका अच्छे तरीके से ध्यान को खुद छोड़ कर उसके खुद ले जाए साथियों मीडिया को नहीं दिखाएगी (Child-kidnapping gang arrested. There could be more such gangs like these in your area. Please keep a watch and protect your child. Make sure that no stranger is around your child while he/she is on the way to his/her way to school. Do take good personal care of them. Media won’t show this -translated)”
A set of images are being circulated on social media with the narrative that a child-lifting gang was recently arrested and people should be careful of such gangs prowling in their areas. Facebook user Zakir Malik shared the photographs with the above message.
One Ravi Negi also posted the images with a similar narrative.
Alt News was able to debunk all the four images in the set. In the course of this article, we will trace the origins of the images with a reverse search on Google and Yandex
In these two images, a group of policemen are seen escorting two people dressed in salwar kameez. We were able to find a video on YouTube posted on August 5, 2019. The video claimed that it depicts an incident where two child-kidnappers were arrested by the police in Ratia, Haryana’s Fatehabad. “Two men dressed as women”, claimed the caption.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltFPEgwXXbc
Alt News contacted Ratia (city) police station regarding this matter. SI Vikram Singh said, “It’s a baseless claim. We did our verification and found that these were transgenders who collect donations. These were not child-kidnappers.”
These two photographs, where a crowd has gathered around a car, pertains to an incident which took place in Kurukshetra, Haryana. A family travelling along with their children was mistaken for being child-lifters by locals in Ladwa. According to Dainik Jagran‘s August 14 report, Surendra Kumar and Sunil are residents of Hissar district who were returning from Haridwar after funeral rites of a relative.
Alt News reached out to Ladwa police to confirm the details of the incident. SI Omprakash said, “We had verified their details and found that these were their own children who were sitting in the truck of the car. They had gone to Haridwar for last rites of their father who died six months ago.” On inquiring about the reason so as to why the kids were sitting in the trunk of the car in the first place, we were informed that the kids had persistently wished to.
Alt News had debunked this image in July this year. The photograph is related to the arrest of a sex racket gang and was falsely shared as that of a group of child-abductors arrested in Madhya Pradesh. You can read our detailed fact-check here.
In conclusion, photographs of people who were mistaken for being child-lifters are now circulated to further the same rumour on social media. You can also read our compilation on the revival on child-kidnapping rumours on social media with fresh videos and images.
Jignesh is a writer and researcher at Alt News. He has a knack for visual investigation with a major interest in fact-checking videos and images. He has completed his Masters in Journalism from Gujarat University.
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