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Jakarta. Text messages claiming children are being kidnapped for their organs have people in Bogor and Tangerang on high alert, and police scrambling to prevent residents from taking the law into their own hands.

Two men were beaten up in Bogor on Monday, a day after six people in Tangerang were attacked by mobs who believed they were kidnappers.

One of the messages read: “We are announcing that children are being kidnapped. The matter has reached Cidadap Serang [West Java], Sindang Sari [Bogor]. Four children have been kidnapped. Their organs removed. Only one person has been arrested. 700 others are still on the loose.”

A day after two men were severely beaten in Bogor’s Rumpin district, Bogor Police Chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Tomex Korniawan on Tuesday sought to calm residents and to urge them not to resort to violence.

“There is no truth to those text messages. Please stop being paranoid and do not allow yourselves to be provoked,” Tomex said.

The two men attacked on Monday had been seen by residents wandering through villages, said the chief of the Rumpin Police subprecinct, Comr. Sarmili. “All they did was smile” when approached by residents demanding to know what they were doing, he said.

“It turns out that both men were mentally challenged. One just kept on smiling while the other did not have underwear on,” Sarmili said, adding that a total of seven men had been attacked in Bogor over the past week, including the two on Monday.

One man was killed in a particularly vicious attack on Friday. “He was also mentally challenged,” Sarmili said.

In Tangerang, five people in a Toyota Avanza van were attacked on Sunday night after they passed through the village of Mauk in Rawa Kidang district and ignored an order by residents to pull over.

Two of the victims were hospitalized, Tangerang Police’s chief of detectives, Comr. Arif Setiawan, said on Tuesday.

Another man was attacked in a separate incident in Mauk the same day. “He was acting suspiciously; he was carrying a sack [with] ladies’ underwear inside,” Arif said. Police suspect the man is mentally ill.

The incidents come after mobs killed two unidentified men in Tangerang on Saturday over fears they were involved in child kindappings.

One man was burned alive after he was thought to be “acting suspiciously.” Tangerang Police Chief Edi Sumitro Tambunan said the man was “looking at houses without actually going into them.” The other man was beaten to death.

Both Tomex and Arif said officers were investigating the origins of the text messages. They refused to comment further on the matter.

Arist Merdeka Sirait, chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas Anak), told the Jakarta Globe on Tuesday that he had looked into the claims in the text messages and had found them to be untrue.

Arist said he had received unconfirmed reports about two murdered children, one in Bogor and one in Tangerang.

The children’s bodies were reportedly found in front of their respective homes several days after their disappearances.

“I went to the places where they said there had been victims and looked for information, but it was all rumors,” he said.

Ganda Upaya, a sociologist from the University of Indonesia, said communities faced with constant worries and crises were easily provoked into collective violence by rumors.

“A community might feel insecure and unprotected when such text messages start circulating,” Ganda said. “They do not believe the police anymore, so whatever looks suspicious has to be stopped there and then.”

He also said the police and local administrations had not acted quickly enough to counter the kidnapping rumors.

“They should have gone to schools and into the community to reassure people,” he said, noting that police already have community policing programs in place.