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FIRM KICKS HBO

Bryant Gumbel’s cable-TV sports show faked its investigative report on exploited child workers in India, according to a new bombshell federal lawsuit.

HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” blasted Mitre Sports International, one of the world’s largest soccer-ball manufacturers, in a Sept. 16 exposé, claiming the company subjugates children in India by forcing them to work long hours stitching soccer balls for little money in squalid conditions.

But Mitre obtained video interviews with the parents of the children in the northern India town of Jalandhar that prove the kids were not factory employees and that they had been offered money or fame to lie on camera, the sporting-goods company claims.

Emmy Award-winning broadcaster Bernard Goldberg interviewed Manjit Kaur, 12, a purported orphan who claimed to earn 5 cents an hour making balls until “her back aches and her eyes hurt,” according to the complaint.

But in a video that’s been entered into the court record as evidence, the little girl’s father says his daughter was offered 100 rupees – the equivalent of $2 – in exchange for her cooperation.

“The show that was presented to tens of millions of people was a hoax and a hatchet job,” Lloyd Constantine, Mitre’s lawyer, charges in the complaint.

The company also obtained videos from the parents of two other children, Deepak and Aman Singh, 10 and 13, who they say also lied about squatting on dirt floors and missing school to make soccer balls, for the honor of being on television, the complaint claims.

Mitre believes it was targeted by HBO because it is a high-profile foreign manufacturer with exclusive contracts with Major League Soccer and the English Premier League.

The company, which presents itself as a conscientious manufacturer that fights child exploitation, filed suit in Manhattan federal court on Oct. 23, charging Gumbel’s show with libel and claiming it lost “tens of millions of dollars” because of the negative portrayal.

As a result of Goldberg’s piece, Wal-Mart and Modell’s Sporting Goods immediately removed all Mitre Cobra soccer balls from their stores, Constantine said.

HBO declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

janon.fisher@nypost.com