Teen Cooks Up Fake Kidnapping Story To Spend Time With Friend

A teenager in India was willing to go to extreme lengths to spend some fun time alone with her friend. The girl faked her own kidnapping and then managed to make her parents believe her story, at least for a while.

The unidentified girl, from the Indian state of Punjab, concocted a story about her own abduction and convinced a classmate, who lived near her home, to inform her parents that she was kidnapped by five men.

The teen made up the story so that she could meet and spend some time with a friend after school hours. The friend lived in another locality.

On Monday morning, the girl left home for school but did not return in the afternoon. When her parents went to the classmate's house to enquire, she told them the cooked-up story, reported News18.

The family immediately alerted the police. During interrogation, the classmate confessed to lying and said the girl had gone to meet another friend.

The two reportedly had made plans on a WhatsApp group to meet up after school. The teen then asked her classmate to lie to her parents. After discovering the text messages, police went to the friend's house and brought back the teen, local outlet Hindustan Times reported. Police were able to locate the girl within three hours.

Her age was not revealed but local media outlets reported that she was a Grade VI student.

Station House Officer Inspector Khushwant Singh urged parents to keep a check on their children's social media activities. He added that children would easily get distracted when they get access to smartphones at an early age amid the COVID-19 lockdown.

In May, a South African woman wrote a desperate plea for help on Facebook claiming that she had been kidnapped and forced into the trunk of her Toyota Corolla. After her posts went viral on social media, police became suspicious as the details about the incident were sketchy. The women later confessed to faking the kidnapping story. She was charged with perjury, defeating the ends of justice and fraud.