When Anwar Khan alias ‘Disco Baba’ was arrested about a week ago, the impression people got from his name was that he would trick people through his dance. In fact, at the insistence of some media personnel at a press conference post his arrest, the conman even danced to a song when asked about his peculiar name.
Dancing is not even remotely connected with what he actually did. He designed elaborate plans to cheat people of lakhs of rupees. Disco Baba’s latest victim was an NRI who gave him Rs. 35 lakh to find hidden treasure (which would mostly be gold) under his house. The ‘gold’ indeed did turn up from under his house, but it was not long before the victim realised that he had been duped.
Unearthing gold
So how exactly did Anwar Khan convince such victims that he would indeed find gold from underneath homes?
The answer to that would be brass bars with gold painting. And, to convince his victims that those bars were not just gold, but long lost buried treasures, he would cleverly get those bars inscribed with Urdu ‘insignia’ stating that they belonged to the Asaf Jahi dynasty or the Qutb Shahi dynasty.
“Disco Baba would also imprint them with random dates like 1710, to make the bars look authentic.
Gold glitters, but the bars he would get painted would be a little dull.
For this, he would convince the victims that these bars were really very old,” said V. Satyanarayana, Deputy Commissioner of Police, South Zone. According to Mr. Satyanarayana, Anwar claimed that he could find gold buried at the time when Aurangzeb invaded Hyderabad and brought down the Qutb Shahi dynasty.
Mithun fan
So how the name Disco Baba? It’s because Anwar fashions himself after yesteryear actor Mithun Chakraborty and wears similar clothes and would dance to songs from the movies in which the actor was the lead.
Ruse
And he would use that ruse at weddings to attract the attention of wealthy people, whom he would later cheat.
A resident of Tappachabutra, Anwar was arrested along with 15 other conmen more than a week ago during a raid by the the South Zone police.
