Fact Check: Viral video showing child being kidnapped by bikers is a hoax

Hyderabad: A video featuring an image of two men on a bike traveling with a child between them is being widely shared on social media with the claim that it shows a recent child kidnapping.

The voiceover in the video allegedly belongs to the father of the child who pleads for any information regarding his child in the image kidnapped by the men in the image.

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Fact Check

NewsMeter found the claim to be false as the video is old from 2022.

We started our investigation by calling the phone number on the video which supposedly belongs to the child’s father. The number turned out to be invalid and also marked spam.

Over a keyword search, we found a media report in Hindustan Times carrying the same image titled ‘Rumours of child kidnapping spook parents, keep police on their toes’ published on September 23, 2022.

According to the report, several fake WhatsApp notes and social media posts regarding child kidnapping around Mumbai were being widely shared in 2022. Such unverified audio messages and social media posts were creating chaos and spreading unnecessary fear among the residents. -

In the police probe, the Mumbai Police decided to verify every message and make the details public. They found out that two audio clips in circulation one about a child being kidnapped from HDIL premier Kohinoor society in Kanjurmarg and another about a student being taken from a municipal school in Vikhroli were found to be fake.

Another case of an 11-year-old boy being kidnapped from Andheri was also found to be fake and baseless. No CCTV or witness were found by the police in their investigation

Similarly, multiple local media organisations such as Mid-Day and Citizen Matters also reported fake social media rumours of child kidnapping cases in Mumbai using the viral image.

Although we could not independently verify the source of the image or find any FIR of the supposed kidnapping case, through our findings, it is evident that the viral video is old and is not a recent child kidnapping.