Vadodara: The police have booked nine astrologers for duping deceased Narendra Soni of Rs 32.85 lakh in the past two years. Soni had consulted several astrologers to overcome his financial problems and ended up paying them all a huge amount. The police have formed two teams to track down the astrologers from Vadodara and Ahmedabad.
“Narendra’s son, Bhavin told us that his father was under immense stress to repay debts and they were not finding a good buyer for their house. So he contacted several astrologers to seek a solution. The astrologers offered to perform some rituals and took lakhs of rupees from Soni,” said P D Parmar, Sama police inspector.
Bhavin told the cops that a few astrologers had also come to their home to perform some rituals and had asked them to dig up the floor. According to the police, on instructions of an astrologer Hemant Joshi, Narendra employed a man named Swaraj to dig up kitchen floor in their house by paying Rs 35,000. They found three urns, one of which was full of bones and other with ornaments. When Swaraj sought more money to dig further, Narendra refused.
Later Narendra contacted many other astrologers, one of whom even found a snake from the complainant’s house. They all asked Narendra to pay money and perform rituals to ensure that their house gets sold for getting rid of his debts. Meanwhile, Narendra came in contact with Ashok Mistry and Sanjay Mistry and decided to sell off his house to them.
The buyers paid him Rs 23.5 lakh but Narendra couldn’t transfer the house in their name as it was already mortgaged. When Mistry duo sought their money back, Narendra came under pressure as he had no money to pay. “It is then that he decided to commit suicide with his family,” the police said.