Man conned as he calls false temple number

KHAMMAM: Falling prey to a fake contact number of a temple listed on a Wikipedia page, a Warangal man was duped into sending money to an account, thinking he was paying to get a religious ceremony performed. The man found the contact number on the Wikipedia page of the Sita Ramachandraswamy temple, located in Bhadrachalam of Bhadradri Kothagudem district. Post the incident, the Executive Officer of the temple G Narsimhulu lodged a complaint with the Bhadrachalam police.

The issue came to light after K Sada Vijay Kumar of Warangal called up a phone number listed on the Wikipedia page, and enquired how he could send money for performing a ‘pooja’ at the temple. The person speaking to him claimed to be Jarpula Srikanth. Srikanth told Kumar that he could send the money through an UPI app, following which Kumar donated `500. When Kumar did not get any receipt for the money he had wired, he called up other contact numbers, and then realised that he had been duped. The fraudster, however, has reportedly been nabbed by the police at Palakurthy.