Messenger That Kills

Rumours gone viral expose a deeply diseased side of society—fearful, xenophobic, murderous.

- Neel Shah in Mumbai​​​​​​

THE rumours range from people stealing kids for tantric human sacrifice rituals to sneaky trafficking agents abducting young boys and girls from the countryside to ship them off to towns and cities to slave in factories or as domestic helps or, in worst-case scenarios, to be sold to brothels. Other versions touch on more conventional insecurities: a childless couple on the prowl to snatch children, preferably toddlers, to raise as their own or those who only have daughters and are now ‘hunting’ for a son.

The messages travel at the speed of light through neighbourhoods as WhatsApp forwards and Facebook posts uniting masses of people on the basis of common fears. Much like an outbreak, the viral ‘child-abductor’ posts have already claimed the lives of more than twenty innocent victims at the hands of feverishly hysterical mobs.

The latest news of lynchings has come out of Maharashtra. Five men from a nomadic community in Maharashtra’s Dhule district landed in a village market on July 1, but didn’t return home. They were confronted when one of them tried to make conversation with a young girl. Rumours were already circulating on WhatsApp about a gang of child abductors roaming in the village.

The conclusion about these five ‘outsiders’ being ‘child lifters’ was arrived at in a reductive, almost algorithmically inhuman manner. The villagers caught and locked the men in a panchayat house and beat them to death with sticks and iron rods. The attack in Rainpada village happened in front of unarmed policemen, who were clearly outnumbered and overwhelmed by the mob.