A self-styled ‘tantrik’ who relieved a woman of five sovereigns of jewellery last year was arrested by the Avadi police on Tuesday.
The accused, identified as Raji (26) from Kancheepuram, conducted a special ‘puja’ in the house of Nagammal, a flower vendor at Bharathidasan Nagar, last year. Claiming that he was a ‘tantrik,’ he promised to ‘ward off an evil force in her house’ by conducting the ‘puja.’ While performing the ritual, he asked Nagammal to remove her gold jewellery and place it in a plastic box. When she placed it in the box and closed her eyes, Raji replaced it with stones and quickly closed the box.
He then asked Nagammal to keep the box near the portrait of a goddess in the house and not open it. He took his fee, asked her to perform regular puja until he returned, and left. A suspicious Nagammal opened the box only to find stones inside.
Couple held
About 10 days ago, a couple from Andhra Pradesh was nabbed in Maduravoyal when it attempted to con a shopkeeper.
Papparao (36) and Varalakshmi (30) from Guntur approached the shopkeeper, Ezhumalai, for buying vegetables from his shop. Later, they told him that they got a gold bar while digging the earth during construction of a house. They offered to sell it for ₹3lakh and demanded ₹1 lakh as advance.
The shopkeeper alerted the police and investigation revealed that the couple was planning to sell clay coated with paint as gold.
The two already have a case pending against them in Sathangadu, police said.
