Girl gives Tk 66 lakh to Kabiraj seeking parental love

13-year-old girl lost her wealth worth around 66 lakh taka after falling into the trap of a fraudster gang out of imaginary anxiety of losing her parents' love. Taking advantage of the simplicity of Lubaba, a schoolgirl daughter of cloth merchant Saidur Rahman of Sherpur district, a tantrik gang snatched a huge amount of gold ornaments and cash from her. Three people, including the ringleader of the gang, were arrested in a PBI operation and a large part of the looted gold was recovered.

The incident began on the social media TikTok. There, Lubaba met a person named 'Khurshed Kabiraj'. Later, they continued to communicate regularly through their Emu account. Lubaba was afraid that her parents' love might be decreasing.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, the fraudster gang tempted her by saying that it was possible to 'adopt' her parents again through special Kabiraj treatment. As part of this, they sometimes extorted Tk 243,000 from the girl in the name of buying a khasi, sometimes offering prayers, and sometimes slaughtering a 'pair of pigs'.

The level of fraud increased further on March 10. The gang cleverly extorted 27.5 bhari gold ornaments and Tk 1 lakh cash from the girl by talking about a scam.

The incident came to light when the girl went to a Bikash store to send the money again and when the agent became suspicious, the whole matter became known. When the police were informed, the PBI Jamalpur district unit took over the investigation of the case.

Under the direction of Additional IGP Mustafa Kamal and under the supervision of Superintendent of Police Pankaj Dutta, with the help of information technology, three members of the gang, Musa Mia, Rafiqul Islam and the ringleader Monir Hossain, were arrested from Gazipur and Mymensingh.

After the arrest, based on information provided by the ringleader Monir, more than 25 bhori 9 annas of gold ornaments hidden in the garden next to his house were recovered, with a current market value of about 6.4 million taka.

Police said the gang had been committing such frauds for a long time, capitalizing on people's religious and emotional weaknesses.