Scripted video is being shared as real visuals of a man kidnapping a child in a suitcase - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
January 4, 2022
A video is being shared on social media claiming it as the visuals of a man caught kidnapping a child in a broad daylight. This video shows a few people stopping a person who is seen carrying a child in a suitcase. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of a person kidnapping a child in a suitcase.
Fact: The video shared in the post is a scripted one. This video was created only for entertainment and educational purposes. Raju Bharti, a YouTuber had created this scripted video. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When the same video was shared with a similar claim on a Facebook page, a user in the comment section recognized the man with red cap in the video as a well-known YouTuber. On reverse image search, it is found that the red-capped man in the video is Raju Bharti, a YouTuber running the ‘Bharti Prank’ channel on YouTube. The Instagram and Facebook pages of Raju Bharti can be seen here and here.
A video with similar visuals was found published on Raju Bharti’s official Facebook page on 27 December 2021. The description of the video states, “This page features fictional videos; All characters appearing in the video are fictitious. The videos made are inspired by true events and are made with a motto to spread social awareness. We anyhow don’t mean to defame, disrespect any religion, caste, nationality, sex, gender or any individual in any manner”.
Several other scripted videos were published on Raju Bharti’s Facebook and YouTube handles. They can be seen here and here.
Earlier, when similar scripted videos were shared as real incident videos on social media, FACTLY published fact-check articles debunking those claims. They can be seen here and here.
To sum it up, a scripted video is falsely shared as real incident visuals of a man kidnapping a child in a suitcase.