Andhra Youngsters Dressed as Ghosts to Scare Friend, Get Detained by Police

Hyderabad: It was a prank that was planned for a birthday celebration, but it landed six students in police station in Vijayawada.

On late Thursday night, a group of youngsters planned to make a horror video film to upload on their YouTube channel. They got dressed in a ghost apparition to scare one of their friends.

But the fun ended when a patrolling police van spotted suspicious movement of these youngsters as ghost. All the students were brought to Machavaram police station.

"Their plan was to scare a friend, celebrate his birthday and upload the video on YouTube channel. They were out at 1:30 in the night. The people in the state are already afraid because of rumours and fake messages going around. We brought them to police station, called their parents since they were minors and counselled them", said a police official.

The Andhra Pradesh police are on high alert as fear continues to grip the state following fake messages on social media.

For past many weeks, a message has gone viral on WhatsApp claiming members of Pardhi gang who are kidnapping children have entered Telugu states. The message also says the gang is killing children for their organs.

At least five people have been lynched and several have been beaten up in different districts in two Telugu states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

After increased incidents of mobs beating up people on suspicion of them being child kidnappers, police are conducting awareness campaigns across villages and appealing people not to believe fake messages and not to take law in their hands.

Both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana police have clarified there is no movement of any inter-state gang and there has been no case of kidnapping reported.