Move over ‘the dog ate my homework’, this elaborate prank is much more imaginative.
Yesterday, police refuted allegations regarding the attempted kidnapping of a primary school student in Taman Pinji Mewah in Ipoh recently
According to Perak police head Mohd Yusri Hassan Basri, their investigation revealed that the nine year-old victim had acknowledged fabricating the incident before filing a police report.
“We have called up the victim and five witnesses involved in the report, including the student’s classmates, security guard, and school van driver.
“And we found that the report saying that the child was almost abducted is not true.
“Maybe the victim was influenced after watching kidnapping videos from abroad through social media sites, in addition to wanting to find out what police will do in such an incident,” Yusri said at a media conference yesterday.
The story went viral after the victim’s father wrote about the attempted kidnapping on Facebook on Sept 23, in which he said the victim managed to escape.
The victim alleged that the individual boarded a white vehicle that was parked around 20 metres from where the incident occurred.
It does not help that as kids we were always warned to stay away from white vans because apparently, they could be human traffickers, now this child has made a joke out of our childhood nightmare.
“We also want to state that the allegation and speculation about the white van in this case, as has gone viral, is not true.
“Police have confirmed that the sighting of the white van was a coincidence as it was a bus ferrying workers, so when this case was still a hot news item, it was misinterpreted as an attempted kidnapping,” he added.
As such, Yusri advised everyone to stop spreading news related to the incident so as not to cause fear or anxiety because it was an offence and action can be taken. And for now, best to not fake your kidnapping, kids.
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