New Delhi, Three men, including one posing as a tantric, have been arrested for allegedly cheating a 79-year-old man of around ₹ 39.3 lakh on the pretext of extracting buried ancestral gold through occult rituals in northeast Delhi, police said on Thursday.
The accused allegedly gained the elderly man’s confidence by showing him a genuine gold coin and promising to recover buried ancestral treasure. The complainant alleged that he was administered a sedative and became unconscious. 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. During the investigation, Shoaib Ali and Mahakader Khan were also arrested for allegedly introducing the complainant to the fake tantric and facilitating the subsequent transactions.
The case was registered at the Seemapuri police station on the complaint of Girijesh Singh, who alleged that the accused cheated him of approximately ₹ 39 lakh through cash and UPI transactions, according to police. On the night of August 4, the accused allegedly conducted a ritual at his residence using steel pots containing soil and fake gold biscuits. When he regained consciousness, he found that gold jewellery worth around ₹ 15 lakh had gone missing from his cupboard. Police recovered ₹ 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.
They induced him to make cash and UPI payments before allegedly staging a ritual at his residence and stealing jewellery from his cupboard, police said. His identity was established as Tahsin, and he was arrested, police said.
