Social Media acts as India’s AMBER Alert in Kerala’s six-year-old girl kidnapping case
On Monday afternoon around 4 pm, a six-year-old girl along with her nine-year-old brother, were walking from the tuition centre, a house with a bright blue gate to their home, 4 houses away. Their grandmother, who usually accompanied them on a daily basis, was probably busy making snacks for the children, as she wasn’t with them. The grandfather was watching TV perhaps, like scores of pensioners. The elderly couple usually looked after the children till both parents would return home, from their jobs. As the children walked back home, the boy engaged in pretend play, wielding a stick as if it were a sword. He playfully swiped at the air, imagining the unsuspecting leaves of plants as the King’s soldiers, each slice a part of his make-believe adventure.
A white car, later hotly disputed as a honda civic or swift dzire, for the greater part of the day, drove up to the children. A man seated beside the driver, called out to the boy saying aren’t you Mr. xyz’s son? The 9 year old boy distractedly threw away the stick in his hand and looked towards the occupants of the car. He had no idea what was about to unfold. He walked up closer to the car, while his sister followed him. The boy noticed there was a woman seated at the back along with another man. The driver watched him as the man in the front seat, now handed over a white sheet of paper, saying “give this to your mother”.
The child took the paper and suddenly grew alarmed as his sister let out a scream. She was being dragged into the car, by the woman. The boy threw himself at the door and tried to wrestle the girl away. Momentarily, the kidnappers may have been taken aback by his courage. The men probably wondered aloud if they should kidnap both children or just the girl. The woman may have opinionated that kidnapping an aggressive boy, would spell trouble and fought him off. The car jerked into motion which threw the boy to the ground. He picked up his stick lying on the ground now and hit the car, which sped away.
The boy ran home, in shock to tell his grandparents, all that had happened. In a few minutes, the police were informed and about an hour later, anyone who tuned into Malayalam News channels, were presented with six-year-old girl’s innocent face.
Over the course of the next few hours, with continuous coverage of the kidnapping story, almost everyone watched as helpless parents with groups of family elders gathered around them. Social media picked up the news and it spread across platforms. The audacity of the crime, shocked people: 4pm on a Monday is not a time you expect, to be unsafe for children to walk home.
Small groups of people started to gather around the house, to pitch in on the rescue effort. The CCTV footage later released to TV channels revealed a licence plate which hours later, turned out to be fake. The police meanwhile were busy chasing leads from various sources.
Malayalam News channels reporters had managed to gain access to the family inside the house, when the first ransom call came in. This happening on LIVE TV managed to set the panic soaring! The kidnappers asked for 5,00,000 rupees for the safe return of the child and abruptly ended the call.
Unseen by all, the police traced a call to a small shop located about 15 km away from the family’s house. The lady shopkeeper became a mini celebrity for a few hours, celebrated by news journalists as she described the couple who borrowed her phone, for a look alike sketch. A day later, the sketch leads the police astray, as it resembles a man unconnected to this incident, and is deemed irrelevant.
Anxiety began to set in, as no new information was available and TV news kept churning the narrative, with same pictures and videos. Then about 8 pm, Malayalam News channels picked up women workers, who are engaged in contract labour, carrying lathi sticks. They set out in groups of 5, combing the forest areas in and around Kollam, looking for the child. They simply could not sit around waiting for news.
Meanwhile young men in groups of 25–30, armed with their mobile phones and vehicles (motor bikes, cars) set out searching for the six-year-old girl. These young men came from, as far as 100 km away from the place of incident. They joined the search effort of actively searching the woods, abandoned houses, unlit roads, quarry sites, unoccupied and derelict buildings and the forest areas in and around Kollam, Varkala and Trivandrum.
Those of us, glued to our TVs, hoped and prayed for the innocent child. Most people I know went sleepless that night. By midnight, a few people gathered at the child’s house began questioning the police procedure which opened the floodgates on comments sections of social media.
Every time the News channels chased a police jeep to a certain location, they raised everyone’s hope. But every time the police turned up empty handed, people vented their anger at the news media reporters, for letting out information, which may have alerted the kidnappers.
Along with 3.5 crore Malayalees in Kerala and around the world, I worried for a 6 year old kidnapped from Kollam district. My mind raced with several questions, was the child alive? Will she be abandoned, in the middle of the night, by her abductors?
The next morning, with dwindling reserves of hope, people watched as higher ranking police officers were seen talking to the family. A second ransom phone call was received where the amount was doubled to 10,00,000. They even promised to drop the child off at 10 am. The police wouldn’t reveal any official information yet but the news channels began to leak what was gained via “sources” in the police.
As the day progressed, all search efforts seeming futile, people started to blame the police for inaction and the media for meddling in the affairs of the police.
Around 1pm, a call was received by the child’s father, who was told by a good Samaritan that the child was found abandoned in a park.
The police quickly reached the location and found the anxious looking, dishevelled and dehydrated child seated on a bench surrounded by some kind natured people giving the child water and biscuits. Finally seeing the child carried by a police officer, everyone watching on TV must have sighed with relief, just like I did. Outwardly though the child seems unharmed, she will need careful counselling to allow, for healing of this scarring incident.
CCTV footage recovered from the park area shows a woman aged about 35 years, walking away from the child, abandoning her in the middle of the afternoon. At the time of writing this piece, the kidnappers are still at large.
In the United States of America, they created AMBER in 1996. It is named after a 9 year old girl child named Amber who went missing and was later found dead. AMBER stands for America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response.
Kollam’s six-year-old girl was found within 20 hours of being reported missing because of people scrolling on their phones! They were shocked and responded with alacrity to this story playing LIVE on Malayalam News channels. Each one of us wanted to help the police find the 6 year old child. In India, as recent as 2021 the National Human Rights Commission of India (NHRC) published a report advising the Government, to implement a robust child abduction emergency alert system in place. The report is available on NHRC’s official website. In this kidnapping case, news journalists along with social media inadvertently acted as a child abduction emergency alert system. Maybe it’s time for India to create a system for the safety of all our children.
