A video showing two young girls being kidnapped from an elevator by two men is viral online with the false claim that the girls are Hindu and are being kidapped by Muslim men in Bangalore, Karnataka.
BOOM found that the claims are false, the video is from Cairo, Egypt and has been given a false communal spin; it shows a father trying to kidnap his two daughters in Nasr City, Cairo.
The video shows a CCTV footage of two girls standing in an elevator when two men enter and sedate them with chloroform napkins. They then carry the girls outside the elevator and kidnap them.
A caption on X reads, "Karnataka, Bangalore-Look how these Hindu girls are being kidnapped from the lift by being given chloroform. Fainted in the lift, both girls were put in the car parked and left, the girls and women who are kidnapped are never known. Missing forever!!"
(Original text in Hindi: "कर्नाटक, बंगलौर-देखिए किस तरह यह लिफ्ट में से हिन्दू लड़कियों को क्लोरोफार्म सुंघा कर अपहरण कर रहे हैं लिफ्ट में बेहोश करके सीधे कार पार्किंग में खड़ी कार में दोनों लड़कियों को डाला और निकल गए,जिन लड़कियों और महिलाओं का अपहरण होता है उनका कभी पता भी नहीं चलता है, हमेशा के लिए गायब कर दी जाती हैं!!")
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The video is being shared with a similar caption on X.
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FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the video is not from Karnataka and shows a father drugging and kidnapping his two daughters in Cairo, Egypt.
A keyword search of the incident on Google led us to a news article published on December 20, 2023, that carried the same visuals. The article was titled 'Video: 2 girls drugged, kidnapped inside elevator Egypt' and carried visuals similar to the viral video.
Taking a cue from the headline, we ran another keyword search on Google and found several news reports about the incident. According to Al Arabiya, the incident took place on December 13 in Nasr City and the matter came to light after the girls' mother filed a complaint against the father at the local police station. The father, an accountant, had separated from the girls' mother and until 2022, the girls were living with their father.
Another report by Al-Masry Al-Youm published on December 21 reported that while the men successfully kidnapped one of the sisters, they left the other one behind after her constant resistance. The report also carried a statement by the Interior Ministry which states that the father left the country with one of the girls on the day of the incident. An investigation into the matter revealed that the father had hired two people-- one to carry out the kidnapping with him and the other to drive the car. According to the Interior Ministry, both these men have been arrested.