Fact check: Cropped video viral as PM Modi admitted to stealing in childhood

This fact-check article was first published in BOOM as part of Project Shakti, which intends to prevent the dissemination of misinformation surrounding Lok Sabha elections 2024.

An edited and cropped video clip of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being shared to misleadingly claim that he admitted to stealing as a child. BOOM found that in the original video Modi is not talking about himself but is narrating a story of a robber. In the viral clip, Modi can be head saying, "When I used to steal smaller things if my mother had stopped then, today I would not have become such a big robber."

Viral on Facebook
On searching with the same caption we found that the viral clip is being shared with the false claim

Fact Check
BOOM found that the viral clip has been cropped from a longer speech given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi where he was narrating a story about a robber and not talking about himself. We found that the clip had been cropped from a speech given by Modi during the West Bengal assembly election campaign on April 10, 2021, at Siliguri, West Bengal. In his speech, Modi attacks West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee alleging that TMC workers take cut money as commission to help people avail benefits of state-run welfare schemes.

After talking about that, at the 39.40 timestamp, Modi can be heard narrating a story of a robber who cut his mother's nose, because when he used to steal as a child his mother did not stop him, which the robber says caused him to commit bigger heists.

Modi in the speech says, "...brothers and sisters when we were children, we all heard the story about a big robber who was sentenced to death. When asked about his last wish, he said that he wants to meet his mother. Then the government arranged for him to meet her, but when he met his mother he bit his mother's nose. When people asked him why did he did so, he replied saying that when he was a child, he used to steal small things and at that time if his mother had stopped he would not have become such a robber...."

The part from the 40.40 timestamp, where Modi is referring to the robber talking about his mother not stopping him from stealing during his childhood has been cropped and shared without context to give the impression that Modi is talking about himself.

One can watch the speech below: