Hyderabad: Two years ago, police had cracked down on sorcerers in the city. Dozens of them from different communities were arrested. Months later, all of them came out on bail and restarted their dubious businesses.
These magic men claim to be able to destroy your enemy, treat diseases, bring prosperity and even help you find hidden treasures.
The tools of their trade, the means by which they claim to effect these miracles, is through wild animal sacrifice, narcotic drugs, sleight of hand techniques, and even human bones dug out of graves, which make a great impression on their gullible clients.
It’s a way of exploiting people who are desperate to seek such remedies for their problems, economic and even sexual.A few such exploitative scams become public but many go unreported.
When Ahmed Khan, a truck driver turned fake baba, raped a minor girl inside his house when she came for treatment last week, it created a hue and cry in the city.
The incident exposed how women fall prey to these men who pretend to have divine powers. Sources say several such cases never become public because the victims believe they will be harmed in some way if they report their tormentors.
“In 2015, the police raided several places in Mughalpura, Sulthan Shahi, and arrested notorious sorcerers like Balabeer Singh, Beluri Srikanth, and D Yadaiah Rodda Devanand alias Nandu. All of these people are out and are still pursuing black magic secretly now,” said a reliable source from the Old City.
In order to impress their clients with their knowledge of him or her, these sorcerers and babas study their clients using local agents before they agree to meet them in person. During the meeting, they roll out the details of the client’s personal information, which impresses the client no end.
South Zone police found that the sorcerers also gave their clients edibles laced with hallucinogenic substances to induce a hypnotic state.
“And once the victims are lured with these tactics, they keep on visiting the sorcerer hoping for better results till their money is completely looted by the fraudsters,” said a senior police official from Hyderabad South Zone.
