Scripted Video from Egypt shared as Burqa-clad foreigners sedating and kidnapping SL Youth!
A video of a burqa-clad person sedating and kidnapping a boy with the help of accomplices is being shared widely on social media platforms. Social Media Posts The video is being peddled alongside the narrative that a group of around 400 foreigners had come to Sri Lanka to sedate and kidnap Sri Lankan youngsters. It […]
A video of a burqa-clad person sedating and kidnapping a boy with the help of accomplices is being shared widely on social media platforms.
Social Media Posts
The video is being peddled alongside the narrative that a group of around 400 foreigners had come to Sri Lanka to sedate and kidnap Sri Lankan youngsters. It is said that they would carry out this mission by being clad in burqas, according to the bold statement of one such person who got caught.
Fact Check
Using the InVid-We-Verify tool, we performed a 'Reverse image' search on the keyframes of the viral video. As a result, we found various reports in Arabic. The original video is not from India; it is from Egypt. According to the reports, the video was scripted, and it is not a real incident.
The video was made for awareness, but it went viral on social media as a 15-year-old boy was kidnapped by a group in a 'tuk-tuk’. However, the Egyptian authorities have clarified that the video is scripted and the people who made the video were arrested. The Ministry of Interior informed the media that the four men who made this video are residents of Sohag Governorate in Egypt. They have confessed to making the staged video. The person in the burqa is one of these men. The arrested men told police that they produced this short video to gain viewers and earn money from social media.
News reports related to the incident can be found here and here.
However, to get further confirmation about the Sri Lankan context, we contacted Police spokesperson Nihal Thalduwa, who confirmed that there were no reports of 400 people coming to Sri Lanka and kidnapping children as peddled in the viral video or arrest of any such person.
These claims were especially viral among Sri Lankan Tamil users, and here is our fact check in Tamil.
We noticed that back in 2022, the same claim made rounds in India on a communal narrative. The video had falsely claimed to be scenes of a Muslim person kidnapping a Hindu Boy. Here is a fact check by the Factcrescendo India team.
Conclusion
The viral video showing a group of men kidnapping a young man in a rickshaw is scripted. The video is from Egypt and has no relation with Sri Lanka.
Title:Scripted Video from Egypt shared as Muslims kidnapping Hindu boy
Fact Check By: Fact Crescendo TeamResult: Misleading
