Child Kidnapping Rumours Revived With Debunked Images

After a brief lull, rumours about child kidnappers disguised as beggars, taking children away and selling their organs have made a comeback on social media. The fake messages are being shared with old unrelated photos with text and audio warning about child kidnappers.

One such viral message is in Telugu and claims that about 500 child kidnappers have left from Bihar and are headed towards Jharkhand. The text in Telugu loosely translates to, "Received information from Orissa about 500 child kidnappers, disguised as beggars who have left Bihar to head towards Jharkhand. These kidnappers will take your children and sell their organs to medical colleges. The police have arrested six to seven but there are more of these kidnappers."

BOOM has previously debunked several such messages claiming child kidnapper are on the prowl and are killing children to harvest organs. Most of these messages used old unrelated images to support the false claim. Social media and WhatsApp driven child kidnapping rumours have led to mob attacks and lynchings in many parts of the county including Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh.

The same message is also being shared on Facebook since July 13, 2020

View an archive of the post here

View an archive of the post here

The message is being shared with four images - two from 2019 in Gwalior where a group was beaten up by a mob on suspicion of being child kidnappers and two photos from 2016 in Gujarat where an arms racket was busted by the police.

FACT CHECK

BOOM has in the past debunked all four of the images when they were being shared with false claims. 

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BOOM had then found that the images were from Madhya Pradesh where a self proclaimed godman and two of his disciples were beaten up by an angry mob on suspicions of being child kidnappers. According to a story published by Hindi news daily Dainik Bhaskar the incident is from August 7, 2019 when a local godman Sakhi baba who dressed as a woman was headed towards Gwalior city and was attacked by a mob who suspected them to be kidnappers before being rescued by local police persons.

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Videos of this incident had then gone viral claiming they are real child kidnappers being beaten up a mob. When BOOM debunked the viral claim in 2019, the photos were being shared as real child kidnappers who were involved in a organ harvesting racket have been arrested.

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The other two images being shared with the false child kidnapping claims show weapons like swords and knives displayed on a table with one of the images also sohwing policemen arranging the swords. These images, showing swords, keeps making a comeback with several claims including the most recent one connecting it to the riots in North East Delhi. 

ALSO READ: Unrelated Weapons Seizure Falsely Linked To Delhi Riots

BOOM had then found that the images are from a 2016 arms racket busted in Gujarat. Results from a reverse image search showed that the images shows weapons seized by the Gujarat's Rajkot police when they raided a hotel and arrested people for dealing in an illegal arms racket.

We had found a tweet by a local news outlet, Gujarat Headline News, which carried the same images shot from a different angle. The same images have been revived several times in the past with communal claims that they are arms found in mosques.

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