Chasing kidnappers in Kurla: Locals dealing with fake messages, rumours, panic

Kurla West resident and social worker Anita Shetty is at her wits end Where she otherwise spends a better part of her time helping families in need and conducting donation drives she now finds herself grappling with rumours that have consumed her neighbourhoodldquoParents are a nervous wreckrdquo she says when we meet her outside the gate of Holy Cross High School Kurla at 2 pm on Wednesday Shetty is here with a pair of volunteers distributing food packets to lorry drivers and cartpullers A beggar in rags is hovering watching from the distance She calls out to him and hands him a banana ldquoEveryone is a suspectrdquo she says as he crosses the road disappearing into the crowdSurjya Narayan Gauda who runs the Mumbai Utkal English High School in Kurla West shows a WhatsApp message he received of a boy who went missing from the nearby Shingrewadi Bail Bazaar on September 26 While he was found a day later Gauda still continued receiving lsquomissingrsquo forwards two days on He has been personally messaging people requesting them not to share old forwards PicsShadab KhanOnly an hour ago the place was brimming with chaos as children from the schoolrsquos morning shift left for the day ldquoFamilies arrived in droves to pick up their kidsrdquo says Shetty a resident of the nearby Christian Village According to her this wasnrsquot the case earlier ldquoKids would walk back home on their own or take a shared autorickshaw Now the school isnrsquot letting students leave the premises if a parent or guardian doesnrsquot show up This overcrowding leads to massive traffic jams near the junctionrdquoFor the last one month the looming fear of child abductors has gripped the area as it has in several pockets of Mumbai Fake and unverified video and audio messages doing the rounds on WhatsApp and social media with wild claims about kidnappers being on the prowl has left parents anxious ldquoAll we needed was for someone to stoke the flamesrdquo Shetty saysOver the last two weeks awareness programmes have been conducted for students of Mumbai Utkal English High School theyrsquove been told not to talk to strangers or take things from themThat finally happened on September 15 when the manager of a cooperative housing society on Premier Road issued a circular to the residents of BWing claiming that two children from the basement of the AWing had gone missing The circular cautioned parents against leaving their children alone and directed them to have a photo ID and address proof of their house helps handy ldquoThe circular went viral on many WhatsApp groups in Kurlardquo says ShettySurjya Narayan Gauda vice president of the Bombay Utkal Samiti an organisation dedicated to bringing Odias living in Mumbai on a common platform explains why the situation could have gone out of control ldquoThe neighbourhood is home to a diverse group of communitiesmdashwe have temples mosques a church and even a gurudwara within shouting distance Therersquos a school every few metres Most of the people here are on different WhatsApp groups Rumours about kids are bound to spread quickly first within the community and then outsiderdquo says Gauda adding ldquoEveryone was only trying to spread the word and warn othersrdquoThe truth was that it was all hearsay ldquoNo kids had gone missing from the basement of the building the letter had been drafted based on hearsayrdquo Rajiv Chavan senior police inspector Vinobha Bhave police station tells midday ldquoWe clarified this by putting out a video that was shared on social media and WhatsApp groups and assured residents about the news being fakerdquoManuel Correia who has two sons says managing kids in the present environment has proved to be toughBut what happened two days later left everyone flummoxed Two girls both Class X students from another wing of the society didnrsquot turn up home after school A source from the neighbouring society told midday that the CCTV had captured the two girls leaving home around 6 am in their school uniforms ldquoBut they didnrsquot go to school and instead went to meet a person they got acquainted with on Instagram They were found the next morning near a restaurantin Bandra Nobody knows how they got thererdquo Senior PI Chavan clears the air ldquoOne of them had an issue with her family and had left home with a friend Both of them had gone to Kharghar and returned home late that night I think they did that to attract their familiesrsquo attention Nobody went missingrdquoThe development however had a ripple effect with parents panicking about the alleged kidnapper who was roaming Kurlarsquos streets Itrsquos been over two weeks but the atmosphere is still disturbed Kamarunnisa Baig is a mother to a 23yearold and 11yearold She confesses that her WhatsApp is flooded with voice notes and videos some of which are deliberately meant to induce shock ldquoIn one video I saw this man using chloroform on a child it took barely a second for the kid to lose consciousness Another video showed a man extracting organs from a childrsquos body I could only see the ribs It was very disturbing I shared these with my family members and friends As parents we are concerned itrsquos our duty to inform others who have younger childrenrdquoKamarunnisa Baig has been sharing WhatsApp forwards related to child abductions out of concernBaigrsquos son studies at Kurlarsquos Karthika High School and Junior College where stories of children going missing were circulating Baig chokes up at the thought of losing her child ldquoMy younger son learns taekwondo and he tells me he will fight the kidnappers but only a mother knows the pain of losing a childrdquoAnother parent Manuel Correia has two sons ldquoOne is eight and the other is ninerdquo says Correia whose wife works abroad Managing the kids on his own and in the present environment has proved to be tough he explains In the area where Correia lives there are four schoolsmdashHoly Cross Karthika Mumbai Utkal English High School and Michael High School ldquoAlmost every day I hear about a kid disappearing from so and so school Itrsquos too close to home to not affect merdquoShivaprasad and Pinky Bishoyee at their home in Navpada a slum in Kurla West Their 15yearold son not seen in frame went missing on September 26 leaving them worried sick His mother had initially assumed he had been kidnapped due to the rumours in the neighbourhood They later learnt that he left home because his father wasnrsquot allowing him to join a cricket coaching classHis solution is to pick up and drop off his children to school every day ldquoEven if all this is a hoax I cannot afford to let my guard down What if they step out during their recessrdquo he asks Correia has instructed his kids against speaking to strangers and to wait inside the school premises until he arrives ldquoThese days I am always on tenterhooks If I receive a call from a teacher while they are at school the first question that pops up in my head is lsquoAre they safersquordquo Shetty adds ldquoMy beautician told me that from now on until the situation calms down she is going to stop working as she wants to watch over her kidsrdquo According to Gauda of Bombay Utkal Samiti who also runs the Mumbai Utkal English High School children are the biggest sufferers ldquoThey are afraid and it is impacting their mind and ability to focus on academics Parents are telling them to focus on being safe Some are even refusing to come to school because of thisrdquo Gauda says the school has 800 students both girls and boys ldquoWe offer a lot of extracurricular activities like dance and yoga after school hours Over the last two weeks the number of kids attending these have dropped to halfrdquo He has been inundated with calls from parents since the rumours first broke ldquoAfter a point it became unmanageable so I decided to hold meetings with select members of the ParentTeacher Association PTA We listed measures that could be adopted to ensure that the children are saferdquoAnita Shetty Jehanzeb Baldiwala Masarrat Khan and DCP Balsing RajputWhile Gauda had previously installed CCTV cameras on the school premises and the street outside he admits that some of them were not functioning ldquoWe got them repaired immediatelyrdquo says Gauda who monitors the CCTV network for suspicious activity The gates of the school also remain shut during school hours and the security guard only lets kids out after school when their parents arriveGauda has also been dropping into classrooms to check on the kids and educate them about not talking to strangers We join him during one such visit ldquoHave you heard about the kidnappersrdquo he asks kids of Class IV They say in unison ldquoYesssrdquo He interjects ldquoYou donrsquot have to be afraid but what will you do if a stranger tries to hold yourdquoAuthorities at Michael High School have used ropes to cordon off the area to avoid chaos when parents come to pick the kids in the evening after classes endThe children shout ldquoBachao bachaordquo and break into laughs On Monday September 26 a voice note claiming that 15 children had been abducted from Michael High School went viral Principal Jean M Gomes who spent the entire day responding to parentsrsquo queries eventually decided to file a police complaint ldquoI had been hearing this gossip every day but when my own school was dragged into the mess I got worriedrdquo she says Gomes then shared a copy of the complaint with parents via WhatsApp ldquoIdeally I would have wanted the police to write a letter stating that these are rumoursrdquo Gomes believes this could be the work of an outsider ldquoThis is some mischiefmaker who is trying to mentally disturb the children who are already reeling from the effects of the lockdownrdquo She says that most children who used to take the school bus are now going home with their parents and thatrsquos added to the managementrsquos woes ldquoThe bikes have increased on the narrow stretch and the overcrowding has made it difficult for movement of traffic post 515 pm when school endsrdquo Principal Jean M Gomes says that most children who used to take the school bus are now going home with their parents and thatrsquos added to the managementrsquos woesThe panic is not restricted to Kurla midday on September 21 had reported about the Mumbai Police being bombarded with queries from anxious parents Joint Commissioner of Police law and order Vishwas Nangre Patil had told midday that it began with a message about ldquo4050 child abductors doing the rounds of the cityrdquo and that they were investigating how the hoax began Apart from an audio clip claiming that three kids from Kala Vidyalaya were kidnapped in a van in Malwani there were rumours of a man being beaten up after he allegedly tried to molest a girl in Vasai In Andheri things took an ugly turn when a paanwala told residents of a society that someone tried to kidnap his 10yearold son Speaking to midday Ankur D a resident of the building says ldquoThe paanwalarsquos shop has always been around When he sent a WhatsApp message to a few acquaintances we had no reason to not believe him We too started forwarding it and alerted the police But it was a hoax The paanwala had forwarded the same message he got from someone elserdquoNews about the child abductors has spread as far as Uttar Pradesh In Sultanpur which is 135 km from the capital Lucknow Salma Khan has refused to let her children go out to play ldquoWersquove heard of children going missing from schools in our neighbourhoodrdquo she says ldquoMy kids are just six and five They are too young to make sense of this At one point I was so scared that I didnrsquot send them to school for a few daysrdquoWhen contacted Balsing Rajput Deputy Commissioner of Police Technology and Crime Prevention shared that the Mumbai Police has already started reaching out to parents and students and has been conducting awareness and sensitisation programmes ldquoWe are also reaching out to others like the transport providers school bus and rickshaws and tiffin services If anyone finds anything suspicious either online or offline we are requesting them to call on our helpline 100rdquo The police he says is currently trying to track the people behind the confusion ldquoIf itrsquos just a message tracing how or who forwarded it becomes difficult When it comes to video and audio messages shared over WhatsApp we can try and track the persons seen in these images but the possibility of finding them is very slim Awareness and alertness is keyrdquo he says Rajput suggests citizens approach the nearest police station instead of forwarding messages and adding to the panicIn the midst of this din a series of strange events in Kurla have made parents who are trying to counter the fake child abduction narrative second guess themselvesSoon after reports of the two missing girls being found surfaced an eightyearold went missing from Shingrewadi on September 26 He was found at Kurla railway station a day laterIn another case a 15yearold disappeared on September 26 after telling his mother that he was going to see the pandals in the neighbourhood He was traced the following day midday met his parents Shivaprasad and Pinky Bishoyee at their home in Navpada a slum in the neighbourhoodWhen Pinky opens the door her face seems swollen and her voice is hoarse from crying She had spent a sleepless night ldquoHe recently secured admission to junior college in Bhandup and had begun to attend it two weeks ago On Monday he left at 10 am and never returned He had also left his phone behindrdquo she recalls Pinky isnrsquot active on WhatsApp so she hadnrsquot seen any of the child abduction messages ldquoBut my younger son studies at Karthika and when I went to pick him up I heard the chatter about the abductors That was the first thing that came to mindrdquo she adds teary eyed Since the family had to wait 24 hours before filing a police complaint their restlessness snowballed into fullblown panic On September 27 after Shivaprasad returned from the police station his wife informed him about a call she had received from an unknown number ldquoWe tried calling back and a person responded We asked him about our son and he told us that a kid had borrowed his phone to make a call We reached the spot and found him thererdquo says Shivaprasad Their teenage son had left home because his father had refused to enrol him into a cricket coaching class He had spent the night sleeping near a cricket playground in BhandupJehanzeb Baldiwala mental health counsellor and cofounder of Narrative Practices India says one cannot rule out the possibility of children making the most of an opportunity especially when therersquos already panic around ldquoOne of the more expected outcomes is that kids start getting fearful and feeling anxious Very few would really take advantage of the situation but it can happen among those in their preteens or teens because thatrsquos the age when kids are trying to push boundaries and assert their independence they are on the lookout for any opportunity that they can latch on tordquoPsychologist Masarrat Khan says the pandemic has only emboldened kids to respond and react in a certain way ldquoOne of the more harmful effects of excess use of digital devices among kids has been the exposure to information that is not ageappropriate The thrill in experiencing what is forbidden has always existed but now they have easy access to itrdquo she says School is now the least of their priorities ldquoWhile some of these children have either lost their social skills and prefer to be on their devices all the time there are others who want to explore the world that they have experienced on their screensrdquo In both the cases therersquos a possibility of kids attempting something that would rattle their teachers and parents ldquoIt could be for the sheer thrill of it It could also be a perfect excuse to escape school and studies even if for a short whilerdquoMeanwhile the Bishoyees have decided to go soft on their son ldquoOur world fell apart when he went missing we were fearing the worstrdquo Pinky says His otherwise unrelenting father has agreed to cave in to his sonrsquos demands and allow him to play cricket ldquoLet him do what he wants to He is precious to usrdquoSept 15Day when manager of Kurla housing society issued circular claiming two children from basement of the building had gone missing15No of children allegedly gone missing from Michael High School according to a fabricated voice note