A video (here, here, and here) of two men allegedly kidnapping a child in front of his house is doing the rounds on social media. In the video, we see two men abducting a little boy on a scooter, with users sharing it and urging people to safeguard their children. We fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: A real kidnapping caught on CCTV shows two men abducting a child.
Fact: The video is scripted and part of a fictional awareness video. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To check the veracity of the viral claim, we performed a reverse image search on keyframes from the video. This led us to a full-length version uploaded by a verified YouTube channel called 3rd Eye.
The title of the video reads: “Every Parent Must Watch This Video..! 😲🙏 See How This Mother Is Careless | #awareness.” A disclaimer in the video (Archive link) description states: “This channel features scripted dramas and parodies… These short films are for entertainment and education purposes only.” The same disclaimer also appears in the video around the 2:33 timestamp, further establishing that it is a dramatiaed sequence and not real footage.
In the past, several scripted videos from 3rd Eye have been shared as real events. These have been debunked by Factly, which can be found here, here, and here.
To sum up, the viral video depicting a child’s kidnapping is not a real incident but a scripted social awareness video.
