Indian doctor tricked into buying 'Aladdin’s lamp' for over INR 15m

An Indian doctor in Uttar Pradesh has filed a criminal complaint after he was conned into coughing up hundreds of thousands of Indian rupees to purchase “Aladdin’s lamp”, which he was promised would make him rich and lucky.

The charlatans had reportedly asked for more than 15,000,000 Indian rupees (about 33 million PKR) for the lamp but settled for a down payment of 3,310,000 rupees (about 6,672,152 PKR), the BBC reported quoting Indian media.

Two men have been arrested so far, while a third suspect — a woman — is still at large. As part of their elaborate ruse, the tricksters went so far as to “conjure up spirits from the lamp” akin to the tale in The Arabian Nights.

At one point, “Aladdin” paid the doctor a visit, but he only later realised that it was one of the suspects who had been dressing up as the figure from the tale.

“Gradually they started telling me about a baba (godman) whom they claimed also visited their home. They started brainwashing me and asked me to meet this baba,” NDTV quoted the doctor as saying, according to BBC. He then did meet the baba “who seemed to perform such rituals”.

The report goes on to quote a police officer telling NDTV that the same men were suspected of cheating other families in similar ways.