Eclipse SMS scares Pune

Source-Deccan Chronicle (www.deccan.com)

Pune, Aug. 22:

A police van took rounds with blaring microphones on Thursday night asking people in many localities to go to sleep and ignore the rumours that they could be dead next day morning if kept awake. Thousands of people living particularly in slum colonies in various parts of the city and far flung villages, refrained from retiring to bed, alarmed by an SMS in circulation which spoke of adverse planetary positions subsequent to the August 16 partial eclipse of the moon, spelling doom for those who slept at night.

Confirming the bizarre happening, police said, their control room received a series of calls from panicky residents on Thursday night seeking to know whether people had been dying since the eclipse in their sleep as mentioned in the SMS doing rounds. The fear stricken families sat outside their dwellings with children telling them not to doze off till morning. In addition to the eclipse effect, other natural calamities like earthquakes too figured in the rumour claiming death of hundreds of people.

When the scale of panic triggered by the rumour mill appeared high, the authorities decided to deploy mobile vans fitted with public address system to visit the concerned localities to dispel fears. The night duty workers at many factories in the Pimpri-Chichwad industrial belt avoided going home after their shift hours and remained awake sitting in the work premises, reports said.

The police had a tough time reassuring the people that no untoward incidents had taken place since the eclipse in the entire region. Another irony is that this should happen in Pune, which is regarded as the seat of education and an IT hub.