FAKE ALERT: No, PM Modi didn’t say he used to steal in his childhood

CLAIM
An undated video clip has gone viral on social media in which PM Narendra Modi can be heard saying, “If my mother had stopped me from stealing small things when I was a child, then I wouldn’t have turned out to be such a dacoit as an adult”.

This clip is being circulated to claim that Modi admitted to being a robber and stealing during his childhood.


The 9-second-long video was posted with the same claim by many on Twitter.


TRUTH
The video is a cropped version of Modi’s speech in April this year, when he was addressing a rally in Siliguri, West Bengal (WB) while campaigning for state elections The claim made with the video is misleading and out of context.
In reality, Modi is not talking about his own childhood but highlighting corruption under the TMC government in WB abetted by CM Mamata Banerjee. To illustrate his charge, PM narrates a fictional story where a grown-up thief blames his mother for not reprimanding him during childhood, because of which he started committing crimes of robbery.
VERIFICATION AND METHODOLOGY
Using InVID Google Chrome extension, we broke the video into keyframes and then reverse-image search on them using relevant keywords.
It led us to a video uploaded to Narendra Modi’s official YouTube channel on April 10, 2021. Titled ‘PM Modi addresses public meeting at Siliguri, West Bengal’, at 40:38 one can hear Modi say the same words as heard in the viral clip above.

However, listening from 39:02, it is clear that PM Modi is targeting CM Banerjee over massive corruption under her in the state.
Talking about how small bribes if not stopped at the right time can lead to large scale loot, Modi narrates a story where a dacoit, on the verge of being hanged for his crimes, blamed his mother for not rebuking him during childhood, as a result of which he became a robber.
It is in this context that Modi said those lines that are now being misinterpreted as him admitting to being a thief.
VERDICT
Times Fact Check has found that a cropped version of Modi’s speech is being circulated to falsely claim that he admitted to being a robber.