CCTV video of woman kidnapped is from Bangladesh, not West Bengal

by Priyanka Jha

CCTV footage of a man abducting a woman wearing a burqa and forcing her into a car is viral on social media. In the video, a vehicle suddenly stops in front of the woman, the man grabs her from behind and pushes her inside. Users are speculating in the comments that this may be a video from West Bengal because people in the background are heard speaking Bangla.

Alt News received a request to verify the video on our WhatsApp helpline number.

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Fact-check

The video is from Bangladesh. Several local media organisations covered the incident on October 12. According to a news portal named Bangladesh News Agency, the incident occurred on October 9 when an SSC student was kidnapped by a group of men in the Brahmanbaria district. The perpetrator was arrested by the police after the CCTV footage surfaced. Police nabbed 25-year-old Jasimuddin in the case.

According to another Bangladeshi news portal named RTV News, Jasimuddin’s brother Kausar Miya helped him force the woman into the car. He too has been arrested. According to the report, the accused had been harassing the woman for a long time. He had proposed to her for marriage which she refused. The brothers made a plan to kidnap her on October 9 when she stepped out of her house. But she returned home in the evening and narrated the incident to her family who filed a police complaint. This led to the arrest of the duo.

A number of other prominent media outlets have reported on the kidnapping, including CBC Bangla, Somoy TV, News Hunt.

Therefore, the CCTV clip of a woman being kidnapped is not from West Bengal, but from Bangladesh.

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About the Author

She specializes in information verification, examining mis/disinformation, social media monitoring and platform accountability. Her aim is to make the internet a safer place and enable people to become informed social media users. She has been a part of Alt News since 2018.