IPOH, Sept 27 — Perak police today confirmed as fake the attempted abduction of a student outside Sekolah Kebangsaan Pengkalan, Taman Pinji Mewah here, which was captured in a viral video last week.

Perak police chief Datuk Mohd Yusri Hassan Basri also said the nine-year-old pupil in the incident admitted to making a false report to find out how police take action on kidnapping cases.

"Following the report on the attempted abduction case, the police have formed a special task force team to investigate so that we don’t want parents and public worried over their children’s safety when sending to school.

"We called all the five witnesses and people involved in the alleged incident, which include the victim’s friend, classmate, two security guards and the van driver, who was accused of kidnapping the student.

"We found out that the story or the report saying that the child was almost abducted is not true,” he told a press conference at the Perak police headquarters here.

Mohd Yusri said that the student fabricated the story after watching and being influenced by the kidnapping videos from abroad that were shared in messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegrams.

"When we asked the child what her purpose was for making such false report, her answer was that she wanted to find out how police take action in such matter,” he said.

Mohd Yusri said police are still investigating the case and no action has been taken against the parents or the children for now.

He also said the white van that was seen in the video was actually a vehicle transporting workers.

The video of the alleged case went viral on Facebook after the parents posted it with the description that it was a kidnapping attempt that was foiled by the would-be victim.

Yesterday, Mohd Yusri said the police received a report on the matter from the victim’s mother at 9pm, the same day of the incident.

Following the incident, Mohd Yusri urged parents to drop off and pick up their children only at the stipulated times and inform the school if they have any problem in doing so.

He also said additional police personnel would be deployed to schools as a precaution.