A nearly two-year old video of a missing child who was reunited with her family is viral on social media with the false claim that she was found in Mangalore with a group of Tamil beggars.
BOOM got in touch with the person who shot the video in 2018 - Rocky Bhadauria, who said the girl was reunited with her kin after she got lost in his housing society.
In the 38 seconds viral video, the girl is in tears while being asked her father's name. BOOM received the same video on our WhatsApp helpline number (7700906111) inquiring about it authenticity.
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The video was shared with the caption, "This little beautiful girl was seen in Mangalore with a group of Tamil beggars. Please forward until it reaches the right parent and she is identified. She knows her name & says she is Sonal Bipin Patel. Please post this photo on all your groups.The beggars say she was found in a train coming from Mumbai.May be she can get her life back"
The same clip was shared by Singer Rekha Bhardwaj on Twitter which she later deleted, however her Instagram post is still up.
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Viral on Facebook
We searched with the same caption on Facebook and found that the clip was viral with the misleading caption.
Also Read: Child Kidnapping Rumours: How A Video From Jharkhand Is Creating Panic In Mumbai
FACT-CHECK
We broke the video into key-frames and ran a reverse image search using Yandex, which showed that the viral video has been circulating since 2018.
A twitter user Arjun Chaudhary, had posted the same video on January 30, 2018, with the caption when translated from Hindi reads, "Whose daughter is this? She was found in Mohan Nagar, if anyone has any information, then contact Rocky Bhadauria."
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Ghaziabad police had quote tweeted the tweet replying that the girl in the viral video had been reunited with her family according to the information provided by Rocky Bhadauria.
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BOOM contacted Bhadauria who confirmed that the girl had reunited with her family. "I had shot the video around a year ago, when I had found her in my colony in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh."
He further went on to mention that after taking her home, he shot the video and shared it via WhatsApp to help identify the girl's parents. "After her parents came to know about her whereabouts, they immediately came over and took her home." Bhadauria told us that the parents told him that when they were filling water when the child was playing and got lost.
"The video has been spread with fake claims, and I have been getting calls since a year regarding her whereabouts," added Bhadauria.
The same video was previously debunked by Newschecker.