Will do anything to flee exams

In the past two weeks, about two dozen students fled from their homes. To add to the police's headache, the "missing" cases were often passed off as "kidnapping" cases.

It’s getting to them. The examinations. You may call it the inability to cope with tension, peer pressure, parental expectations or just developing cold feet the night before the tests, but a growing number of students have gone missing in Patna during Class X and XII exams.

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In the past two weeks, about two dozen students fled from their homes. To add to the police's headache, the "missing" cases were often passed off as "kidnapping" cases. As the policemen discovered with Abhishek Sinha. One morning, Abhishek, a student of College of Commerce, went to buy milk at a dairy in Rajendra Nagar and did not return. His relatives lodged a complaint with the police. A couple of days later, the boy returned with a story — he had been kidnapped and somehow he managed to escape from their clutches.

The truth was not so colourful, as the police discovered later: Abhishek's Plus Two exams did not go well and he panicked and fled. The case of Mukund Singh, a Class XII student of Holy Mission School, is no different. He went missing from the Gandhi Maidan police station a few days ago. Thankfully, he returned in time to take his remaining exams.

When contacted, IG (headquarters) Anil Sinha said, "Preliminary investigations have revealed that most of the students fled from their houses because of fear of examinations. But we don't want to take any chances, so we investigate the cases in all earnestness and take all these as cases of kidnapping." As they do about Ujjwal Kant, who went missing from his Kankarbagh residence recently. The police suspect this is a genuine case of kidnapping. Ujjwal's father got a ransom call asking for Rs 5 lakh.