This is a story of how social media added to the agony of the father of a 17-year-old boy who had gone missing on Wednesday morning.
The news of a boy on a stretcher went viral on social networking sites and messenger services. While the message claimed that he had a head injury and was lying unconscious at Kempe Gowda Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS), and asked the recipient to help identify the boy, hospital authorities said that the boy whose picture was being circulated on social messenger services was not admitted to the hospital.
At Thyagaraja Nagar, the family of Siddaraju, a coconut dealer, was worried as their son, Hemanth, a second pre-university student, had not returned after his yoga class, barely 100 metres from home. While their frantic search went in vain, a relative informed them about a chain message on WhatsApp having a photograph of a boy on a stretcher. Soon, the family reached KIMS only to be told that the boy had not been admitted there.
Mr. Siddaraju told The Hindu in the evening that the photograph that was being circulated on social messenger service was not that of his son’s. Another missing person complaint has been filed.
