Team Herald
PANJIM: The scare of kidnapping school children has worried institutions across Goa prompting managements of various schools to issue advisories to parents and students. The Goa Police department too has sent communication to all police stations to intensify police patrolling in and around school and college areas.
North Goa Superintendent of Police (SP) Shobit Saksena has called on parents and students not to panic but to take necessary precautions to avoid any such incidents. He said that no kidnapping cases have been registered but has asked the parents to avoid letting their kids wander alone, not to go with any other persons except their parents and not to take lift from unknown vehicles.
The wireless message to concerned staff of police read: “Direct all staff of Robots/highway Patrol/Pink Force/ Robins to maintain patrolling nearby school/collage area and if any suspected person found should be detained and brought at Police Station for enquiry”.
School managements on behalf of headmasters and all the teachers have also issued advisories.
They have sent out request to take precautionary measures to keep school children safe. Meanwhile, the South Goa Superintendent of Police briefed media on the kidnapping suspicion that has spread across the State.
Meanwhile, an irate crowd on Tuesday thrashed a man suspecting that he was trying to kidnap a minor boy at Vasco. But the police said that the victim was mentally unsound.
The incident took place at around 6:30 pm near the old fish market at Kharewado after a minor boy cried for help when a man tried to pull him. Soon crowd gathered and questioned the man and mercilessly thrashed him before he was handed over to the police.
A video of the incident went viral on social media and soon the news spread like wildfire that somebody was trying to kidnap a minor boy. He was identified as Dhen Jones, 52 from Puducherry.
On the other hand, Vasco PI Kapil Nayak said that the man who was assaulted may be mentally unstable. Police said that one Nagendra residing at Vasco filed a complaint stating that an unknown person tried to kidnap a minor boy at Kharewado and that he was caught by the public.
A police team rushed to the spot and rescued the man from the clutches of the irate people. Police then brought both the man and the minor boy at the police station for enquiry.
The police later took the man to the Sub District Hospital at Chicalim for medical examination, where doctors said that he was mentally unfit and he required to be referred to Institute of Psychiatry and Human Behaviour (IPHB), Bambolim, for treatment. He will be referred to the IPHB, after obtaining permission from the Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC), Vasco, informed the Vasco police.
