A creepy prank appeared to have incited a public scare in Kerala. It has also triggered a scramble for security cameras, according to the State police investigators.
A rash of widely shared WhatsApp and Facebook messages of unknown provenance seemed to have legitimised an elaborate bluff that criminals, including child lifters and robbers, marked out houses they hoped to target with black stickers.
The social media hoax prompted many residents to check their homes. Many were appalled to discover black stickers on windowpanes, doors, gate or walls.
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They shared their findings online with their friends. The widely disseminated messages sent rumours on an upward spiral and instilled a sense of dread which the police had found hard to alleviate.
Old stickers
Inspector General of Police, Manoj Abraham, who heads the Kerala Police Cyberdome, said field investigations had revealed that 80% of the stickers were old ones stuck on glass panes, often to buffer them during transport or mark them out during installation. Building workers rarely removed them.
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But at least 20% was the work of pranksters. The police suspect that some in the home security systems business were bankrolling the hoax.
The scare also appeared to be the backwash of recent high-profile robberies by other State gangs in North Kerala. A favourite Tamil film about roving gangs targeting houses acted as a catalyst for the panic. Residents in Thalayolaparambu in Kottayam reported the scare initially. Soon, a deluge of similar complaints followed from other parts of the State. Motiveless mischief-makers appeared to have sensed an opportunity and entered the fray.
In Thiruvananthapuram, a KSEB employee, Gopakumar, told the police that a noise had woken up his wife at 3 a.m. on Wednesday. He was on night duty. On his return, he was shocked to find two black tabs stuck on his gate.
Reshmi Shaji, a housewife, said social media posts and newspapers reports had alerted her to the “threat”, and she found it to be true.