By Tim Binnall
Hundreds of students living at a school dormitory in India abandoned the building after some of their classmates fell ill and rumors spread that the youngsters had been possessed. According to a local media report, the peculiar episode began on July 22nd in the village of Chikhaldara taluka when four girls at the community's residential school began acting strangely. Specifically, the youngsters were said to have been overcome with alternating fits of laughter and crying. Word of the weird event spread like wildfire among the school's 800-strong student body, and speculation surrounding the situation soon turned to the supernatural.
As is often the case with fast-moving rumors, the precise explanation for what caused the incident varied depending on who was telling the story. Some contended that the girls had been possessed by sinister spirits angry over the recent felling of a tree on the property. Others attributed the event to a drainage issue impacting a neighboring temple, causing spiritual misfortune to befall the school. Finally, in something of a classic canard, it was theorized that the problems were caused by the ghost of a youngster who had recently passed away near the building. While the source of the suspected supernatural influence remained up for debate, around 600 students decided they did not want to stick around to find out and, over the course of the next several days, exited the school en masse.
Nearly a month later, school officials are desperate to get the departed students to return. Stressing that the unsettling event had a natural explanation, they explained that doctors examining the afflicted girls believe that they suffered from Dissociative Conversion Disorder, a stress-related condition wherein one exhibits the seemingly strange behavior seen in the youngsters at the center of the case. "The symptoms have nothing to do with anything supernatural," one official declared. Alas, conveying the prosaic explanation to the now-scattered students has proven to be a challenge, but there is hope that all of the departed youngsters will return to the dormitory by month's end.