Chennai: Two teenaged 'godmen', who walked away with 5 sovereigns of gold belonging to a housewife in Old Perungalathur after posing as godmen and conducting a pooja to ward off evil forces in the house, were caught in the same neighbourhood when they tried the same trick on another woman.
Selvakumar and Ramesh, both 19, are from Vellore and they had conducted a pooja in the house of the Sivanesan — Kaleeswari couple on Tuesday morning.
They had asked the woman to keep her ornaments together and tie them in a handkerchief. Kaleeswari kept the gold in the handkerchief given by the boys and tied it herself.
The bundle containing the gold was supposed to be kept in the pooja room for a day to get the full impact. The 'godmen' later asked Sivanesan and Kaleeswari to bring pure water to create 'theertham'. As soon as she fetched the water, the two sprinkled it in every corner of the house and left the place after charging '200 for the pooja.
Kaleeswari became suspicious after the dup had left as she noticed there was a change in the knot she had made in the handkerchief. She then opened the knots of the handkerchief and found her ornaments missing. She immediately alerted her neighbours. Local residents tracked the two who were trying to repeat their con act at a home just two streets away.
The two were caught, thrashed and handed over to Peerkankaranai police station. The ‘godmen’ had changed the handkerchief when the couple went to fetch water and placed another in its place with knots in the same places, the police disclosed.
“We are questioning them to verify their background and also trying to find out if they had committed same kind of offence anywhere else,” the police said.
