By Mohd. Ismail Khan, TwoCircles.net
Hyderabad: Rumor rampage ones again stole away the sleep of Muslims in Hyderabad. Yesterday night when a rumor of girl born with ‘four hands and four legs’ and an illogical prediction made by her spread like a wild a fire in old city. According to the rumors a baby girl in Shaheen nagar area in the suburb of the city was born with pecuniary features, started speaking and gave a warning that every child from 1 to 11 years of age will die if he or she slept before 2:a.m in the night.
This utterly nonsense and irrational news was believed obediently by the devout of superstition, soon by mid night rumor took the form of gossip, and spread to the surrounding areas of the old city, and within hours major part of old city and some Muslim dominated parts of new city witnessed Muslims coming out of their houses and waking up like owls in the dead hours of the night.
Relatives who heard that rumor informed their other relatives without conforming authenticity of the news. Phone calls played an important role in free flow of this superstitious news from one locality to another. Children who were asleep before the news reached their parents were awakened and even elders were unable to take a nap due to the atmosphere of panic and uncertainty. Women were seen out of their houses on their Terries and Verandas with their infants trying to make sense of the situation.
Zaheda bano a house maid from Amberpet locality told TCN, that her son who returned home from old city after work informed her about the prediction made by that unique baby girl. She said, “I along with my grandchildren woke up till 3:a.m in the night, because my neighbors also awakened their kids, and I didn’t want to take any chances.”
Police try their best to bring confidence among people; police in their vehicles took rounds old city and tried to convince Muslims to go back in their homes as the news is bogus, but in vain. On Thursday morning DCP of south zone which covers major part of old city, informed the people via local media that news was fake and made out to create panic in the city by some miscreants, and police are trying to tap calls to catch those miscreants who originated these rumor.
Almost every local Urdu newspapers have reported that there office phones were kept ringing till early hours of the morning, by the curious crowd who wanted to conform the genuineness of the rumor.
One week back Hyderabad was in the grip of rumors targeting north eastern Indians, few days back Muslim women were under panic during Eid due to the rumors of death of three women after applying chemical mehendi. Now with the latest one targeting innocent children and weakness of their parents believing superstition, city police is having a huge task in their hand to save gullible people from menace of rumors, and to take a stern action against rumormongers.