Kerala: Minors fall prey to social networking prank

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Minor boys seem to be falling prey to what looks like a social networking prank in which female ‘friends’ made over Internet invite them for a meet and don’t turn up. Two minors took a bus from Sooranad in Kollam to Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday to meet such a friend they have never seen. After hours of wait in front of a prominent girls’ school in the city, they were taken to the police station by Pink Patrol, a patrolling team of women police.

The boys, aged 16 and 17 years, said their ‘friend’ used a fake handle on the social networking site but they knew her real name. The older of the two had convinced his parents to buy him a present which he would gift to the friend. They had told their parents that they were going out but did not share that they would be travelling to Thiruvananthapuram. The parents of the two boys were informed after they were taken to the police control room.

This was not a one-off case according to sub-inspector C.S. Girlie. “We came across two boys from Chathannoor who were standing in front of another girls’ school in the city only a month ago,” she said. The police says that schools are instructed to not allow teenagers to use mobile phones. Usha Devi, the headmistress of a leading city school, attests to the same. Parents would give children mobile phones thinking that they could use it in times of emergency, according to police. Now the police advises them to not do so.