Three kids caught shoplifting marmalade in a Moscow suburb received nervous breakdowns over the scare given to them by the store’s guards, media reported.
Two boys and a girl, aged between 11 and 12, were busted stealing sweets in a supermarket store in Butovo district in the city’s south, Balt-Info news website said.
Private security guards locked them up in a back room and called their parents, asking them to come over and punish the kids, the report said.
But the adults discovered upon arrival that the children had been sent into such a fit of collective hysteria that they had to be hospitalized, Balt-Info said on late Friday. They remained in hospital as of Saturday, two days after the shoplifting incident took place.
The children face no legal penalties over shoplifting because they are beneath the age of criminal responsibility, set at 14 years in Russia, the report said.
But police would investigate the security guards, who were supposed to hand the matter over to the law enforcers, Balt-Info said.