New Delhi: The youth, famous on social media as ‘Crazy Sumit’ for posting a prank video in which he was seen randomly kissing girls and running away, and his associate were apprehended by Delhi Police on Friday and released later in the day. Who is Sumit and Why is he ‘Crazy’
Sumit Kumar Singh (20) is a student of BCA at the World College of Engineering and Management in Gurugram.
He has been active on YouTube since 2015 and has made 35-40 such prank videos.
He told police that he thought of doing such videos three years ago when he was bed-ridden and watched such videos online.
In October last year, he was reportedly ‘awarded’ by YouTube for crossing 1,00,000 subscribers on his channel, The Crazy Sumit.
It was in December last year that he planned to make a ‘kiss-and-run’ video, and contacted his classmate Satyajeet Kadian (25).
Satyajeet, who shot the video, has a YouTube channel of his own — DC Prank.
Satyajeet, too, uploaded the ‘kiss-and-run’ video to his channel but took it down after negative comments.
Sumit says the girls featured in the video were part of his “crew” and aware of the plan, a claim the Delhi Police are verifying. How He Landed in the Police Net
Ravindra Yadav, joint commissioner of police (crime), says the duo told police they make such videos for money. "Both are friends and active on YouTube… During interrogation, they said that they are doing this for money since YouTube pays them for hits. If they get 1000 hits, they earn something like Rs 700- Rs 800," PTI quoted the officer as saying.
“It is unfortunate that youngsters are resorting to such pranks to earn money and recognition…. The trend is to shoot obscene videos to get more hits and thereby more money. Besides paying them to do this, YouTube and Google are further giving them incentives like recognition and certificates in parties organised by them. They are also hired by manufactures of games/apps to advertise for them and make new launches successful,” said Yadav.
To track Sumit, the police approached YouTube to obtain his IP address. Two months ago, Sumit met a friend at a bar in Connaught Place. This person was associated with a photography studio and through the studio, they apprehended Sumit. What YouTube Has to Say
"YouTube’s Community Guidelines prohibit content featuring things like harassment, hate speech, shocking or disturbing content, illegal acts, and graphic violence, and we give our users tools to flag content so that we can review and remove anything that violates our policies.
"We also comply with valid legal requests from authorities wherever possible, consistent with our longstanding policy," a representative said.What’s Next?
Police are currently verifying Sumit’s claim that the women featured in the video were his friends and knew about the prank.
Police will proceed to record the statements of the women.
Comments
0 comment