Clip of Petrol Pump Worker’s Abduction Falsely Shared as Incident From UP

The clip shows a petrol pump worker being abducted before getting robbed in Saudi Arabia's Hail.

The video of a petrol pump worker being abducted is originally from Saudi Arabia.

(Photo: Twitter/Altered by The Quint)

A clip showing a man being abducted from a petrol pump is going viral on social media. In the clip, a man, seen fuelling a black car, is promptly abducted by the customer, who pushes the employee into the car while someone pulls him in.

Social media users are sharing the video, claiming that it is from Uttar Pradesh’s Budaun and that the employee was abducted because he had a lot of money on him.

The claim comes amid an increase in fuel prices across the country, which has now hit an all-time high.

However, The Quint found that the video was from Saudi Arabia’s Hail. The incident, which happened on 28 September, involved a team of three Saudi nationals abducting and robbing petrol pump workers.

CLAIM

The clip is being shared with the following claim in Hindi -

“उत्तर प्रदेश में पेट्रोल डालने वाले कर्मचारी को ही उठा ले गए क्योंकि उसकी जेब में दिन भर का पेट्रोल का कैश था। उत्तर प्रदेश के बदायूं की घटना|”

[Translation: People abducted a petrol pump employee in Uttar Pradesh because he had the entire day’s petrol sales cash in his pocket. Incident from Uttar Pradesh’s Budaun.]

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

More posts with similar claims can be seen here, here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

Using InVID, Google Chrome’s video verification extension, we divided the viral video into keyframes and ran a reverse image search on them. One of the results was a report by RT Arabic, which carried a video of the incident.

The video carries a date stamp, which shows that the incident took place on 28 September 2021.

The footage shows that the abduction took place on 28 September.

(Photo: RT Arabic/Altered by The Quint)

Using keywords such as “Saudi petrol pump abduction”, we looked up news reports regarding the incident and found an article by Gulf News that carried the video. As per this report, the incident took place in the Hail city area.

The report further noted that as per Hail Police’s media spokesperson Sami Al Shammari, an investigation was immediately launched after the police received a report of a team of Saudis kidnapping and robbing Asian petrol pump workers.

Three Saudis, who had narcotics in their possession, were arrested in connection with the case, reported Gulf News.

Evidently, the viral video does not show people abducting a petrol pump worker in Budaun, Uttar Pradesh for money. The incident took place in Hail, Saudi Arabia on 28 September earlier this year.

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