Indian boy fakes kidnap to avoid exam

An Indian boy faked his own kidnapping to avoid an English test this week in Mumbai, the Times of India reports.

What? You thought all Indians were spelling brainiacs?

According to an old report from the same newspaper, nearly 6,000 Indian students have been known to kill themselves to avoid exams, or because of bad results, in a given year.  That's 16 kids a day, for those of you without calculators handy.

The reason? Exams are far too influential in determining your future. Not only can a fraction of a point mean the difference between getting into university or not — forget entrance essays and interviews! — but also even if you're a lock to get in someplace your exam results will determine the subject that you're allowed to study. In other words…. Score well: Engineer; Score badly: Social worker.

Here's the dope:

Our hero was apparently watching a detective show on TV when it hit him that getting kidnapped would be better than flunking his test. 

Around 9.30am on Sunday, the boy left his home on the pretext of going to a tuition class. "Around 11am, he called up his mother from a public booth and claimed that he was hiding in Pant Nagar, Ghatkopar (E), after managing to escape from the clutches of four masked men. He said the four men had kidnapped him from the main road and taken him in a car," said Ghatkopar police senior inspector C V Zendekar.

Eventually, he confessed to the scam and copped a plea, convincing the police to ask his father not to yell at him the way he had when the boy failed his last exam.

The boy appeared for the test on Monday after going through counselling, according to the paper.