‘Possessed’ girls, haunted hostel: How rumours drove 610 students out of Amravati school

In July 29, girls at a government tribal hostel in Amravati's Melghat started exhibiting strange behavior, leading to rumors of possession and a haunted campus. This resulted in hundreds of parents taking their children home. However, a state health team found no evidence of supernatural activity and diagnosed the girls with dissociative or conversion symptoms, describing the episode as a case of "mass hysteria".

The symptoms included continuous crying, fearfulness, sadness, somatic complaints, loss of appetite, forgetfulness, and memory loss. The District Mental Health Programme team found the girls to be fine after overnight stays, suggesting that cultural beliefs, stress, and unexplained fear could have contributed to the spread of the symptoms.