The girls had skipped school and were scared of being punished. (Representational)
Three schoolgirls looking to escape punishment for bunking classes put the Manipur administration on alert today after cooking up a story about how three people had kidnapped 20 school students.
The girls from Nambol town on the outskirts of state capital Imphal had skipped school today. Scared that this may invite a scolding, the girls claimed that they were among a group of 20 students kidnapped by masked men on their way to school, police sources have said.
The girls, the sources said, told cops that the kidnappers offered to take them for a picnic and asked them to get into a van. The two kidnappers, they said, were wearing masks. The girls said they became suspicious and jumped out of the moving vehicle shortly after they were picked up, the sources said.
The information set off alarm bells within the Manipur administration at a time when unrest in the Northeastern state has claimed about 170 lives over the past couple of months. What heightened the tension further was the fact that the alleged incident took place a day before a special Assembly session.
However, while questioning the schoolgirls, police found inconsistencies in their statements. A proper investigation was carried out, and it was eventually established that they had cooked up the story after bunking school, the police sources said. The children, they said, will be handed over to their parents.