NEW DELHI: A man posing as a tantric and his two aides have been arrested for allegedly cheating a 79-year-old man in northeast Delhi of around Rs 39.3 lakh by promising to recover buried ancestral gold through occult rituals, police said on Thursday.The accused also allegedly stole gold jewellery worth Rs 15 lakh from the elderly man’s house during the rituals.The accused allegedly won the man’s confidence by showing him a genuine gold coin and promising to recover the buried treasure.They then induced him to make cash and UPI payments before allegedly conducting a ritual at his residence and stealing jewellery from his cupboard, police said.The accused have been identified as Tahsin alias Krishna Sharma alias Krishna Pandit (48), a resident of Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh; Shoaib Ali (40), from Dasna in Ghaziabad; and Mahakader Khan (48), from Paschim Midnapur in West Bengal.According to police, a case was registered at Seemapuri police station following a complaint by Girijesh Singh, who alleged that the accused had cheated him of approximately Rs 39 lakh through cash and UPI transactions.On the night of August 4, the accused allegedly performed a ritual at Singh’s residence using steel pots containing soil and fake gold biscuits.The complainant alleged that he was administered a sedative and lost consciousness. When he regained consciousness, he found that jewellery worth around Rs 15 lakh was missing from his cupboard.Following technical surveillance and analysis of leads, police traced the alleged main accused, who had been posing as Krishna Pandit, to Amba Vihar in Muzaffarnagar. His identity was established as Tahsin, and he was arrested, police said.During the investigation, Shoaib Ali and Mahakader Khan were also arrested for allegedly introducing Singh to the fake tantric and facilitating the subsequent transactions.Police recovered Rs 2.73 lakh in cash, an SUV allegedly used in the crime, tantric clothing, 11 rings, two Aadhaar cards bearing the names of Tahsin and Krishna Sharma, a PAN card, an ATM card and two mobile phones.Investigators suspect that the accused used multiple identities and staged occult rituals to gain victims’ confidence and induce them to part with money and valuables.(With inputs from PTI)
