A photo is being shared on social media claiming it is a picture of a missing boy found by the Kunnamkulam police in Kerala. Alleging that the boy was at the Kunnamkulam police station, this post state the boy’s parents’ names as Aakash and Leena and requested social media users to share the message till the news reach their parents. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Photo of a missing boy found by the Kunnamkulam police in Kerala.
Fact: Multiple childrens’ photos were circulated on social media with a similar claim since 2017. The Kunnamkulam Police Station Inspector Soorej V C confirmed to Factly that all these photos of missing children linked to the Kunnamkulam police station on social media are fake. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the photo shared in the post, we could not find any reliable sources related to the photo. But one could find multiple users in the comments section mentioning it as a fake post. Many users in the comments section replied that different pictures were circulated with a similar claim for many years.
On searching for further details using relevant keywords, we found that photos of different children, including the boy’s photo in the post, are being circulated with a similar claim on social media since 2017. They can be seen here, here and here. Sharing the pictures of these missing child photos, many media websites and social media users stated these as fake posts.
In 2017, when another child’s photo was shared with a similar narrative on social media, Deepa Joseph, the Chairperson of the Distress Management Collective, clarified through a Facebook post that the news about a missing child found by the Kunnamkulam police is false information.
For further clarification regarding these missing child photos, we contacted the Kunnamkulam Police station Inspector Soorej V C. While speaking to us, Soorej V C confirmed that all these photos of missing children linked to the Kunnamkulam police station on social media are fake. Though we could not ascertain the details of the boy shown in the post, from all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the boy seen in the photo was not found by the Kunnamkulam police.
To sum it up, the boy seen in this photo was not caught by the Kannamkulam police station in Kerala.
