Documentary ‘exposes’ fraud behind Jalpari feat attempt

A senior journalistturned-filmmaker has, through a documentary made by his production house, exposed a fraud being committed in the name of a swimming record by an 11-yearold Kanpur girl.

Filmmaker Vinod Kapri, through the documentary, revealed how Lalit Shukla, father of Shraddha Shukla (also called ‘Jalpari’), was not only fooling people by projecting the girl as an avatar of ‘Maa Ganga’ but was also making the girl swim for long stretches against her wish.

Kapri showed journalists here a 10-minute clip of the 90-minute documentary shot by members of his production house, Bhagirathi Films, between Rae Bareli and Allahabad, to prove his point. He also uploaded the film on YouTube.

However, Lalit and the girl had crossed Allahabad on their journey and were not available for comment.

Shraddha had set out on her Kanpur to Varanasi journey on Sunday to create a record by covering the 570-km in 10 days.

The film shows how Lalit made Shraddha swim just 200 to 300 metres while approaching a ghat, having public and media presence, and then carrying her in the boat once they have crossed the ghat. One of the divers accompanying the girl also revealed on camera how Lalit was fooling the people by projecting his daughter as an incarnation of ‘Maa Ganga’ and collecting money from people on the ghats where Shraddha stopped for rest.

The film shows old men and women touching the girl’s feet and offering money.

“I am a journalist-turnedfilmmaker and on hearing about the girl perform such an extraordinary act like swimming 80 to 100 km in a day I decided to make a documentary film on her. However, while accompanying Shraddha for three days I found that she started swimming on instructions of her father only while approaching a ghat or seeing people standing to witness her swimming. This disillusioned me,” said the national award winning filmmaker.

As per Kapri, against the claims of the girl swimming 80 to 100 km per day, we found that she swam only 2 to 3 km every day while rest of the distance she sat with her father in the boat.

“I recorded the statements of team leader Mann Singh Paswan and divers Pintu Nishad and Rammilan Nishad, who also revealed the truth behind the entire act. All the three said that from the first day Shraddha was doing the same thing which was not in accordance to claims made earlier. I have sympathy with the child as her parents were destroying her childhood for their selfish motives,” he said.

Kapri said on Day One Lalit told him that she was swimming for short stretches due to ill-health, while on the second day he said that due to crocodiles in the region Shraddha was swimming for short stretches.

“However, on the third day when the same thing happened I called off my project and on reaching Allahabad I decided to expose the truth as Lalit was playing with the sentiments of the people, besides destroying his daughter’s childhood,” said Kapri.