The case of a haunted mobile phone? The Indian news media reported that many people from the Indian state of Assam complained that their mobile phones exploded after receiving a mysterious text message. In fact the problem is so serious that the state government has ordered an official inquiry into the matter.
About 30 cases have already been reported and more than 20 people have been admitted to the hospital. The media is calling it a “Bombile” where users complained of receiving a message from a number highlighted in red after which the phone would explode immediately.
“I got a phone call from an unknown number and I noticed on my handset that the numbers were highlighted in red colour. Soon after I received the call, there was a loud sound and I was left unconscious”, victim Mujib Ali said in an interview with the Times of India.
“I experienced some sort of an electric shock soon after receiving the call and then later found myself in the hospital bed with some of my friends shifting me by calling the 108 emergency ambulance service”, he said.
However Mobile service providers are confused about this bizarre set of events. One Reliance Telecom official said, “We have got numerous queries from users asking us to explain the reason, but we are not sure. We have asked for expert help from our head office to have an internal probe into the matter”.
The police commented saying, “The interesting thing is that some of the handsets that have burst are from genuine brands like Nokia, Samsung and Motorola. Initially, it was presumed the cases were witnessed in cheap Chinese make handsets, but now even that theory was proved wrong”.
You can read the original news story here.