A disturbing video of a four-year-old puffing cigarettes like seasoned smoker in the Xinhua county of Hunan Province in China has emerged online. What's more shocking is that the kid has been smoking for one or two years already, neighbours said.
The kid has been stealing cigarettes from shops inside local schools, reported Chinese daily btime.com.
Also Read: Parents in Portugal village encourage 5-year-old kids to smoke for Epiphany festival
The viral video shows the four-year-old sitting on a bamboo chair and smoking a cigarette while chewing on coconut snacks. According to the Chinese daily, the video was taken by the kid's grandparents, who can be heard laughing in the video.
There is another video in which the kid is seen lying on a sofa and making smoke rings.
According to btime.com, the video has started a debate on Chinese social media platform WeChat and government officials also visited the boy's home to warn the grandparents.
"The children's parents are working in another city. He is being looked after by his grandparents," Zeng Xiong, the deputy secretary of Wentian town government, told btime.com.
But this is not the first time a shocking video of a kid smoking has emerged online. Remember the Indonesian boy Ardi Rizal, who shot to fame after a video showing him smoking cigarettes had gone viral? Rizal was just two-year-old when he started smoking. He used to smoke around 40 cigarettes a day.
However, he turned his life around and quit smoking cigarette when he was five.
"At first when we were weaning Ardi off the cigarettes he would have terrible tantrums. But he doesn't want them now," his mother said four years ago, according to The Sun.
Last year, there were photos of Rizal, who turned nine in 2017, that showed him much healthier and happier.
