Mumbai: The curious case of the mysterious hair chopper

It's no more than a 10x10 foot space which serves as both, dairy and home of 32-year-old Pintu Kunwar Solanki and her husband Narayan Sihar, 35. It's a Friday afternoon in Vasai East, a day after Solanki realised her hair had been chopped off, adding one more name to the rapidly growing roster of a mystery scissorhand's prey in Mumbai and its outskirts. Ever since, the unassuming store has been drawing more crowds than usual, with curious neighbours stopping by to check on Solanki. As we cut through the crowd and enter, we find her sleeping on the floor, head covered by her pallu. She has been like this since the attack, we are told - traumatised and inactive.

Her husband gently nudges her awake. Though she can barely keep her eyes open, she recalls the events of Thursday morning, in broken sentences, nearly dozing off mid-sentence. "I woke up, as usual, at 6 am, washed my face and walked to the shop counter. I had slept well and was fine. But, before I could reach the table, I felt my head reeling. I don't remember what happened next."

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The table is barely four steps from her place of rest. The incident occurred somewhere between 6.30 am and 6.45 am. Her husband Sihar had just stepped outside for his morning rituals. "I was gone for all of five minutes. When I returned, I saw her lying unconscious on the floor, and a tuft of hair was lying next to her," he says, pulling it out from a plastic bag. This bit, Solanki tells us, was chopped off from near her right ear.

She was administered saline at the local Waghmare Hospital and discharged the same day. The headache, however, persists and the trauma has drained her out. "She has no medical history, has never fainted before. In fact, this is the first time she has even had to take an injection," Sihar says, showing us her blood reports. They leave for Rajasthan in a couple of days and plan to stay there until she recovers. The couple has been Mumbai residents for 10 years and moved to Vasai three years ago. Sihar has not approached the police yet. "I don't know what complaint to file." The police, however, did come to the hospital for an inquiry, we are told, but, the matter was not taken up further.

Binadevi Jaiswal had woken at 3.30 am on Thursday morning to feed her six-month-old daughter. Later, when she turned to the other side of her bed at her home in Sai Ganesh Chawl, Santosh Bhuvan, Nalasopara East

In the last couple of months, several incidents of women realising that their hair was mysteriously chopped have been reported across the country (see box). The first incident was reported in July from Dwarka, on the outskirts of Delhi. Mumbai's first report came on August 9.

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The attack on Solanki comes within 24 hours of a similar incident in the area. On Wednesday evening, in the Samtanagar slum, Poonam Yadav, 28, was performing the evening aarti while her husband had stepped out and her children had gone to play. She says that she'd just got done and was preparing to cut vegetables for dinner, when she felt an itching sensation in her head, similar to something crawling on her scalp. Following this, she fell unconscious. Her children were the first to spot her. Her hair was found lying next to her.

She tried to pull her hair in the front, but realised it had been cut. The remainder of the plait was lying next to the pillow. Pics/Hanif Patel

Hers is a tiny one-room ground floor home, divided into two sections, where she stays with her husband Jaihind Yadav, a driver, and five children. "My head was wrapped in my pallu when this happened. I am sure no one was around me at the time," says a visibly tired Poonam, when we meet her at her home. "I have not been able to stand since it happened and my head is splitting. I have never had headaches like this before." She removes her pallu to show hair chopped off close to her scalp.

Yadav and her husband hail from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh. Most of their neighbours are migrants from either UP, Rajasthan or Haryana. There is a sense of fear and anxiety in the neighbourhood, where women have reduced stepping out for daily chores. Some have not sent their children to school since Thursday. "We try to keep our heads covered as far as possible, and have started to tie our hair in a bun instead of tying a braid," says Champadevi Yadav, who hails from Benaras. The children, too, have their heads tightly wrapped in stoles. Pointing at one of them, someone says, "She only takes it off before a shower."

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Yadav, known to everyone as a fit and fine, sturdy mother of five, is in a condition that has rattled the neighbours. "There are rumours in Jaunpur about women whose hair was chopped, dying in eight days. That thought could be traumatising Poonam," says Parmila Saroj, a relative, also from Jaunpur.

Both Solanki's and Yadav's are ground-floor homes, that can be accessed by an outsider should they wish to intrude. However, neither spaces allow for someone to hide, waiting for a moment to strike. In both cases, the entrance to their homes was open, and at the time of the incident, no one was around. Saddled with question marks, the theory of the supernatural is never far away. "We have plastered the walls with hand-prints and hung neem leaves at the door," the neighbours confess. "It's not being done by a human," Yadav's husband says sounding resolute. "Someone would have seen or felt a presence if that were the case."

Local corporator Praful Patil says this theory is better than other superstitions doing the rounds

An eight-legged intruder?
Even as speculations hinged on the supernatural rapidly continue to multiply, an insect spotted in the neighbourhood - resembling a cockroach, but larger - has created a furore. Praful Patil, a local corporator, says, "We spotted it lying on the street on its back, unable to move. What was surprising was that it was alive even after a bike ran over it. I come from a family of farmers and am well versed with insects.

I have never seen this insect in my life." Someone suggested the possibility of the insect being a hair-eater. However, it didn't eat the few strands it was offered. Nonetheless, by Friday morning, its image had gone viral on WhatsApp. Patil sees this as an opportunity to calm the neighbourhood. "I am trying to urge them to think this could be the work of a keeda, and not the supernatural. That way, they have a semblance of an explanation."

On Friday, images of an insect went viral with suspicion rising that it was a hair-eating creature.

Twenty-three-year-old Binadevi Jaiswal has been admitted to the hospital twice in 24 hours after her plait was mysteriously chopped off at around 4 am on Thursday morning. At her home in Sai Ganesh Chawl, Santosh Bhuvan, Nalasopara East, her brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Rinu are present. They are all natives of Jaunpur and the one-room ground floor space is shared by six, including Bina's infant daughter. The space is divided into an outer area and kitchen. Bina was sleeping in the kitchen with her husband and daughter, while Rinu, her son and husband were asleep outside. It was Rinu who heard Bina's shrieks at 4 am. "She had woken up at 3.30 am to feed the baby, and at around 4 am, she turned to the other side to sleep. When she tried to shift her braid from one side to another, she realised there was no hair there. The remainder of the plait was lying next to the pillow. She screamed and fainted," Rinu says. Though Bina gained consciousness in a couple of hours, because she looked traumatised, her family took her to the Vasai Virar Municipal Hospital (VVHM) at 9 am, where she was given saline and brought home in an hour. She fainted again in the afternoon and was taken back to the hospital at 4.45 pm.

Her husband, Avadh Narayan, a plumber, is contemplating filing a complaint. "I have not done it yet because the police will come harass her with questions. Also, the medical reports are still with the doctors and without those, I cannot file an NC," he tells us on Friday evening. Bina is lying on a bed in the women's ward, with her six-month-old by her side. She seems in a better state, as she shows us how her hair was chopped off from her nape onwards. She too complains of a nagging headache.

A jumble of versions
Initially, the hospital did not seem keen to part with information. One doctor, without disclosing her identity, says, "We cannot divulge details, as it is a medico legal case, so we need clearance from the cops." It's puzzling as the victim hasn't filed a complaint. The Resident Medical Officer, also withholding her identity, says, "She [Bina] must have been administered chloroform, which is why she fainted. She was made to smell something." When asked, Bina denied this theory altogether. "A pipe was inserted into my nose only when I came to the hospital. I had smelt nothing before that."

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Sonali Majhi, like many children in the area, has been tying her head with a scarf, taking it off only before going for a shower. Exterior walls of several houses in the Samtanagar slum area have been plastered with hand-prints to ward off evil

Dr Rani Badlani, medical superintendent, VVMC, says these are cases of trauma. "When Bina was brought in first, she was conscious. Her family insisted that we give her some medicine as she had fainted the night before, so we did and discharged her. Her condition was stable. The second time round, she was brought in a state of unconsciousness. She woke up soon, but we decided to keep her under observation because this was her second time. No abnormality has been found in the blood reports. The headaches could be because of the trauma she is in. Her sense of security has crumbled because this is an act of intrusion. But, medically, she is fine." She adds that they did not check for suspicious substance in the blood.

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"She was brought in more than six hours after she had fainted, and at that time she was fine. So, we did not check for abnormalities in blood," Badlani says.

Poonam Yadav, originally from Jaunpur UP, now a resident of Samtanagar slum, in Vasai East had just finished performing her evening aarti on Wednesday, at 6.30 when she felt an itching sensation that caused her to faint. A thick mound of chopped hair was lying next to her on the floor, where she was found

Cops smell a rat. Literally
While none of the victims or families in Nalasopara and Vasai have filed a complaint yet, the growing number of cases do not seem to have alarmed the local police. One theory appears to be: "Chuha kha raha hai", as these are all ground floor homes in slums. There is also the suggestion that the women are doing it themselves for sympathy and attention.

At the additional superintendent's office in Nalasopara (East), Police Inspector Rajendra Barge, when questioned about the incidents, starts leafing through the WhatsApp images (related to the incidents) that have been circulating. He doesn't seem to know the number of incidents that have occurred in the area. "This is not the thana, this is the office. Complaints don't come here," he says. "This seems to be an industry of rumours. And even if the victims were to file a complaint, who would they file it against?" Asked which section of the IPC would such incidents be reported in, he pulls out a book on the Indian Penal Codes and leafs through it for 15 minutes, before deciding on Section 426, Punishment for Mischief - Whoever commits mischief shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three months, or with fine, or with both. "There are possibilities like hypnotism, or even an internal act, within the family. Because in most cases, as they are saying, the home is locked from the inside, how can an outsider come in? But, the point is, we cannot take any action without a complaint."

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