Coronavirus: Indonesian village recruits ‘ghosts’ to scare people into staying at home

'We wanted to be different and create a deterrent effect because ‘pocong’ are spooky and scary,' village youth leader says

Volunteers Deri Setyawan, 25, and Septian Febriyanto, 26, sit on a bench as they play the role of 'pocong', or known as 'shroud ghost', to make people stay at home amid the spread of coronavirus disease (REUTERS)

A village in Indonesia has resorted to a rather novel way of making sure people stay at home and practice social distancing – by unleashing a team of “ghosts” upon its residents.

A youth group in Kepuh village, on the island of Java, reportedly coordinated with local police to set up a team of volunteers who dressed as mythical “pocong” – a spirit originating from folklore that represent trapped souls of the dead.

“Pocong” (poh-chong) are also known as “shroud ghosts”, and are typically pictures as being wrapped a long white shroud tied over the head, around the neck and under the feet.

According to Reuters, the team hoped to use the superstition to scare people into staying indoors as coronavirus continues to spread rapidly throughout the Southeast Asian archipelago. On Monday, Indonesia’s Health Ministry announced a total of 4,557 infections nationwide, with 399 deaths.

Anjar Pancaningtyas, head of Kepuh’s youth group, said: “We wanted to be different and create a deterrent effect because ‘pocong’ are spooky and scary.”

However, the ghostly figures had the opposite effect of scaring villagers into staying at home when they first began appearing this month.

After curious residents started coming out to catch a glimpse, organisers have been forced to change their strategy to launch surprise “pocong” patrols.

Although the virus has spread to all of the archipelago’s 34 provinces, president Joko Widodo has resisted a lockdown similar to those imposed by neighbouring countries like Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore.

He has urged people to practice social distancing and good hygiene, but regional administrations are calling for the government to impose larger scale restrictions as the number if infections surges, reported The Jakarta Post.

Village head Priyadi said: “Residents still lack awareness about how to curb the spread of Covid-19 disease. They want to live like normal so it is very difficult for them to follow the instruction to stay at home.”

Jakarta is the hardest-hit region in the country by the virus, with over 2,000 cases and nearly 200 deaths. It was the first region to impose strict social distancing restrictions and went into a partial lockdown last Friday.

A similar ghostly prank to scare teenagers into staying at home in Malaysia turned out to be a success. Muhammad Urabil Alias, from the state of Terengganu, posted several photos of himself dressed head to toe in white on Facebook and wrote: “Are there any vacancies in RELA or the police department tonight? Bored of sitting all alone.”

Mr Alias, 38, told local newspaper Harian Metro that he dressed as a ghost to prank teenagers who stayed out at night in the area, violating a movement restriction order imposed to slow the spread of coronavirus.

He said: “When I uploaded the photos on Facebook, a lot of people panicked and became scared to leave their houses.

“Netizens reached out to me and asked whether the photos were real or not. I thought I made it obvious from the light-hearted tone in my post.

“I was clearly joking, but so many people thought that I was an actual ghost when I was just dressed up as Gandalf,” he added.

Malaysia has recorded 4,817 coronavirus cases, with 77 deaths. The country has been under lockdown for over three weeks now, and are not allowed to go outside even for exercise and only one person per household can go to supermarkets for essentials.