When residents took cops for a ride

PANCHKULA/ CHANDIGARH: On All Fools’ Day, cops got a number of false calls regarding murders, kidnappings, lootings and robberies taking place in Panchkula. Such calls were received at the police control room, while there were instances of station house officers getting calls regarding their supposed transfers or summons by the deputy commissioner of police (DCP).The Chandigarh police control room also received half a dozen prank calls regarding different fake incidents in the city.
“I got a call from someone saying that an angry Panchkula DCP was looking for me at the Navaratra fest at the Mansa Devi temple. The caller said the DCP wanted to see me right away. Initially I got a bit panicky and was about to leave for the temple but then I remembered that it was April 1 and I told him that if the DCP was looking for me he would have called me up on my number,” said inspector Dalip Kumar, SHO of the Mansa Devi police station. The officer informed that apart from this, other prank calls regarding lootings and brawls were also received at the station.
Besides calls regarding bogus kidnappings and robberies, the Panchkula police control room got an interesting call saying that “Chachi 420 has been murdered.” An official attending to the police control room calls on condition of anonymity said, “It was around noon that we got a call from someone who sounded like a child saying that Chachi 420 has been murdered. First we did not realize that it was a prank and kept asking who is Chachi 420 and where the murder had happened but when the person on the other end laughed, we realized we had been fooled.”