Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: The seven laddoos that Neha (35) did not eat, perhaps, saved her life. The sweets, allegedly “prescribed” by an occultist who claimed he was curing Neha of dizziness, have claimed at least eight lives, police say. In one week, police have contacted at least 50 people who went to Kamrudin in Loni, Ghaziabad. The occultist is now at the centre of a widening serial-killer probe.
Three people were recently reported dead in Peeragarhi, allegedly poisoned. Kamruddin has also been linked to a 2014 murder and a double murder last year. Neha survived because her skeptical husband threw the supposedly “blessed” sweets in the trash and forbade her from eating them. Last Feb, Neha, who worked in a factory, started complaining of dizziness. The clinical tests she underwent did not show any problem. At this juncture, a family friend, Saleem, approached Neha and her husband and told them about Kamruddin’s “divine healing powers”. Neha went to Loni with her brother, unaware that they were stepping into the lair of a man who had allegedly caused at least eight deaths. The woman, from Sultanpur in Lucknow, said the occultist “diagnosed” her just by looking at her. “He didn’t ask for my medical reports. He just looked at me and did a jhaada (a supposed cleansing ritual). Then, he pulled out a piece of paper and drew the face of a woman and a man whose head was split open. He told me I had been fed the meat of pigs and chickens as a curse. He said an ‘utaar’ (cleansing) was the only way to save me.” The first “consultation” cost Neha Rs 2,000. Kamruddin gave her the seven ladoos, instructing her to eat one every day for a week, just like doctors prescribe medicines. “My husband did not allow me to eat them. The occultist had given me a bottle of water to keep drinking and an egg too. But I didn’t eat anything,” Neha said. At the next visit, the fee jumped to Rs 8,000. The occultist claimed a “spiritual surgery” was required. “He made me lie down and told me he would pull the curse out of my stomach. He used a white cloth, like a gamcha, and appeared to pull out blood-soaked threads and something that looked like rotting meat. The smell of dead meat was so strong I started puking. He told me the evil was leaving my body.” Kamruddin then made Neha run laps around the shrine inside his room. He also made her consume a cold drink. Neha survived. Several other victims were not so lucky, police say.
