SANGAREDDY: Narsapur police busted a fake baba racket, but only this time the baba is a Class X student. The incident came to light when the ‘bala baba’ ordered students to hold burning coal in their hands to prove their innocence in a stolen cellphone case.
Police said, a couple, Malavath Laxman and Prameela who run a tea stall at Pedda Chintala Kunta village in Narsapur mandal in Medak district, decided to make their son, Manoth, into a baba and cash on people’s ignorance. Soon, they gave publicity in the village and surrounding areas that their son has gained mystical powers and people can approach him to get their problems solved. Believing their words, people from the district began to come visit the baba for his advice. The parents collected `20 from each person. Vinod, a Class X at Narsapur school, on the advice of his friends, approached the bala baba on Saturday to ask for help in tracing his stolen cell phone. Bala baba asked Vinod to bring his roommates, Prabhu, Prudvi, Praveen and Krishna, and their parents to him and conducted an ‘innocence’ test on them. He asked them to hold burning charcoal in their palms saying only the guilty person’s hand would get burnt.
Believing him and desperate to prove their innocence, all students followed his orders and ended up burning their fingers. Disillusioned after seeing the burns on their children’s palms, parents and onlookers began to quarrel with the baba and his parents. They said they realised the baba is a fake and called the Narsapur police on them. Police rushed to the scene and took the four students to a hospital for treatment for their burns. They registered a case on Laxman and Prameela for cheating people. They let off Manoth as he is a minor.