Man fakes 'kid'napping on FB, sends Mumbai cops on wild goose chase

User Zain Shaikh posted on Facebook that his nephew was abducted and later killed, but cops verify that no such incident occurred in Mumbai; hunt on to find Shaikh and determine motive behind post

Here's a social media head-scratcher. In a case that is still befuddling authorities while serving as a cautionary tale for blind social media activism, a man on Saturday posted details about his young nephew being kidnapped and later killed, only to later delete all traces of it when the police got involved.

Facebook user Zain Shaikh, at around 1.48 pm on Saturday, posted a picture of a four-or-five-year-old boy along with a note that read, “The little guy in the pic is my nephew and the black Innova belongs to us which is driven by our driver from past 4 years. On Friday evening our driver named Jafar went to drop my nephew at my sister's home, which was 20 mins drive from our place. As time passed by my sister called at my number informing that the kid was not home yet. I immediately called at the driver's number but he refused to pick and after an hour his cell was off,” adding, “After few hours of searching around we did a police complain. Today morning the police just found our car parked near Dadar TT Circle. It's almost 18 hours since he is missing and there is no information of him.”

However, when the Matunga police swung into action and started investigating, they discovered that no such missing person's complaint was filed. Matunga senior police inspector, BM Kakad said, “We searched the whole vicinity, but no such car has been found nor had any missing complaint been reported.”

By Sunday evening, Shaikh posted another message, “My nephew (Musa Arfat Shaikh) is no more. Janaza is after Asar Namaz at Nariyalwadi Kabrastan.” However, even this did not check out as the authorities found that there was no record there for a Musa Shaikh. No shock then that by Sunday night, Shaikh had deleted all the posts regarding his nephew.

According to a senior official of Matunga police station, “We are now trying to get in touch with the person to determine if his account was hacked or whether it was a prank. As of now, we are still verifying the details.”

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