Woman tantrik held for duping people

Hyderabad: A 52-year-old woman tantrik hailing from Nagpur on Friday was arrested for allegedly duping people of their money and valuables, police said.

Accused Kusum Sowdhai, used to cheat gullible people stating that a goddess enters her body and tells about the fate of those who approach her, police said. Though the accused does not have any powers to cure any problems, she used to cheat innocent people to earn easy money telling that a goddess enters her body and tells about the good and bad things in their lives, police said.

A businessman S R Satish Kumar (complainant), who was frequently falling ill without any apparent reason, had approached Sowdhai in 1995 for a cure. The accused had told him that some of his family members had done black magic on him and to get rid of it, he has to perform some pooja. From 1995 to till date, the accused demanded lakhs of rupees, gold jewellery and silver material from the complainant on the pretext of performing pooja, which he provided, police said. She further threatened the complainant that if he revealed about the pooja to anybody, something bad would happen to him or his family members. Due to fear of death, the complainant handed over the gold jewellery to the accused and did not utter a word about it, police said. In that process, the accused also cheated the complainant by telling him that somebody had done black magic against him and took cash, jewellery and silver items from him for performing poojas claiming she will save him from the effects of black magic, police said. The accused also committed theft of some gold jewelley from Kumar's house, they said. The accused was arrested today and over 250 grams of gold jewellery belonging to the complainant was recovered from her, a police release said here.