Staged child kidnapping video viral yet again - Alt News
Kinjal
16th July 2022 / 4:44 pm
An 8-minute-long video clip that purportedly shows a kidnapping attempt is viral on social media. In the video, we see a woman getting out of an auto-rickshaw with a child. As she is speaking to the auto driver, another woman standing in the vicinity picks up the child and flees.
Meanwhile, two men recorded this act on their phones. They inform the child’s mother and head in the direction of the alleged kidnapper. The mother, along with those who had filmed the act, get into a physical altercation with the alleged kidnapper. During this scuffle, one of the men slaps the alleged kidnapper several times. In the end, she confesses and apologises.
Social media users have shared the video and claimed the mother was deaf and dumb. Hence she did not notice when her child got kidnapped. A Facebook user posted this video with the same claim. (Archived link)
गूँगी माँ का उठाया बच्चा हुआ ये सब 😭 deaf 🧏😢
Posted by Aditya Mishra on Saturday, June 4, 2022
Another user also amplified the video on Facebook.
A disclaimer appears at the 0:16-mark of the viral video. It states that the video “should be considered for entertainment purposes only”.
Upon further investigation, we found the same video posted on June 7 by a Facebook page called ‘Ankur Jatuskaran’. Ankur Jatuskaran is a video creator who often makes prank videos and shares them on his YouTube channel and Facebook page.
We examined the Facebook page closely and discovered that it has previously posted several such scripted videos (link 1, link 2, link 3). Apart from this, we noticed that the man seen in the viral clip is Ankur himself. He features as an actor in most of the videos.
To sum it up, the viral video that shows child kidnapping is actually scripted. In the past, Alt News has fact-checked multiple such videos which are actually dramatised or made for awareness. However, because the disclaimers are not being featured properly, they are often mistakenly shared as real incidents.
Kinjal Parmar holds a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology. However, her keen interest in journalism, drove her to pursue journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. At Alt News since 2019, she focuses on authentication of information which includes visual verification, media misreports, examining mis/disinformation across social media. She is the lead video producer at Alt News and manages social media accounts for the organization.
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