“They pluck out hearts of children”—how fake news is crippling Indian villages with anxiety

When asked if there had been actual incidents of child-lifters visiting his village, Billu of Akbarpur village in Banda district of Uttar Pradesh said:“Yes, the other day someone came dressed as a woman in a hijab and was reportedly on the lookout for children, to commit all kinds of atrocities on them: stab their stomachs, pluck out their eyes, liver, hearts and whatnot. Like Billu, most of the rural populace in Bundelkhand believed this macabre content was credible. In a region where news reports and news consumption are dominated by incidents of violence, torture and crime, this did not seem out of the ordinary and took no time in going viral across several districts.