Fact Check: Video Of Babies From Saudi Arabia Being Slapped & Thrashed Shared As A Video From India

Over the past few days, The Logical Indian has been receiving multiple messages from our community members, drawing our attention to a gruesome video wherein a person (not visible in the video) can be seen brutally hitting, thrashing and even choking two babies. The babies don’t seem to be not more than six months old.

The video is being shared over social media. Just one such post on Facebook has been shared more than 9,200 times and has been viewed over 1,90,000 times.

Same video is also getting widely circulated over WhatsApp.

Original video is from Saudi Arabia

Many are tricked into believing that this video is in fact from India. However, turns out that the video is originally from Saudi Arabia and the person who is beating the children is their mother. The mother has already been arrested.

The video, which had caused much outrage when it was first posted even reached the Saudi Arabian officials. The Saudi Ministry of Labour and Social Development too had confirmed that the video was genuine. The officials then released an appeal for information about the person who first posted it. The man was finally tracked down and was identified as a Yemeni man, as reported by Daily Mail.

The man then revealed that the mother was a Somali woman living in Saudi Arabia who is married to another Yemeni man. Reportedly, the couple had separated. The woman with her twin daughters was said to be having financial troubles. It was then that she took a video and sent it to her husband’s father as a warning of the consequences of failing to pay her money.

The worried grandfather shared the video with the man who posted it online, hoping to get the kids rescued.

The babies were found in Jeddah and have been taken to a hospital. It is reported that they will be handed to their father now.

Video falsely believed to be from India

The video when posted soon found its way to India. As the video was forwarded multiple times, the original source of it got lost. This led to many people believing that the incident has taken place in India. It is to be noted that in the past too, unverified and staged videos from other places have been shared leading to paranoia and hysteria among people. In worst cases, such videos have led to mob lynchings. Prime example being that of Dhule, where a group of people were lynched by a mob on suspicion of child traffickers, based on the video which was actually from Syria. Barely a few hours later, in Malegaon, another group of workers were attacked by a mob. The videos which are suspected to have led to the attacks were traced to Karnataka and passed on as those to have happened in nearby areas in Maharashtra.

Creating or sharing fake news is never justified. We have a responsibility to verify everything that we post on the internet. To ensure that our national debate is healthy and well-informed, each and every one of us has a responsibility of treating what we read with a pinch of salt, a spoonful of doubt, and a flood of research.

Also read:

• Fact Check: An Educational Video From Pakistan Is Edited And Shared To Spread Fear Of Child Kidnappers
• Fact Check: From Mandsaur Gangrape To Maharashtra’s Mob Attack: Three Instances Where Fake News Went Viral
• Tamil Nadu: Mob Of 200 Lynches To Death 65-Yr-Old Woman Mistaking Her For A Child Trafficker