Video of Thieves Disguised As Monks Shared As Child Kidnappers Being Beaten

The video showed people beating some thieves who tried to steal from locals in Raisen, Madhya Pradesh.

Fact-Check | Video showing people beating up thieves dressed in Sadhu's clothes have gone viral with a false claim.

(Photo: The Quint)

A video showing people beating up a few men dressed in saffron robes has gone viral with a claim that they were child kidnappers who were apprehended by locals.

The 30-second video shows people chasing and beating men dressed in saffron clothes with sticks.

However, we found that the claim with the video was not true. The men who were being beaten in the video were not child kidnappers. The incident is from Raisen, Madhya Pradesh where some thieves came dressed as Sadhus and tried to steal jewellery from locals in Polaha village.

Six people, belonging to Uttar Pradesh, were apprehended by locals, were beaten up and then handed over to the police. The incident took place on 6 August 2022.

CLAIM

The video was sent to us on our WhatsApp tipline with people asking if the video showed child kidnappers being beaten up.

Screenshots from the viral video.

(Source: WhatsApp/Screensot)

The video was shared with another small clip that showed men, who had kidnapped a few children, talk about the amount at which they will buy and sell children. This was a scripted video and The Quint's WebQoof team has already fact-checked it.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We used the InVID WeVerify Google Chrome extension to extract keyframes from the viral video and conducted a reverse image search on some of them. While going through the search results, we came across a report by Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar. The report published in August carried screenshots from the viral video.

According to the report, six men came in the guise of a monk and tried to rob jewellery of a woman in Polaha village. The men were given alms by the villagers and spent the night in the village.

The next morning, they told a woman that she would face obstacles in live and to get rid of them, she should let them do a puja and get rid of the spirits from her jewellery. After the woman gave them her jewellery and money, she was fed something that made her lose consciousness.

Dainik Bhaskar report can be found here. 

(Source: Dainik Bhaskar/Screenshot)

The woman's husband found out about the theft and informed the villagers who caught the group and beat them up. They were later handed over the police. The report added that all six were from Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh.

The incident was also reported in the Navbharat Times and IBC24.

We reached out to Amrit Meena, Additional Superintendent of Police, Raisen, who dismissed the claim that the people getting beaten up were child kidnappers. He reiterated the facts mentioned in the news reports and added that a case had been registered against the thieves.

Evidently, the claim that the sadhus were caught while trying kidnap children is false .

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