A villager engaged two tantriks to solve a theft case on Monday with the help of two bamboos in Champapur under Bairi police station in Jajpur district.
“I was compelled to summon two tantriks as the police had failed to solve the theft case in my house last week. The bamboos moved automatically and caught two suspected thieves,” said Binod Das.
Both the tantriks claimed that the bamboo had acquired special powers after a puja and could detect all the thieves.
“We identified around 500 thieves through bamboo tricks in last 20 years. We are more competent than the police. Five years back, a retired senior police officer sought our help to nab thieves who committed theft in his house at Jajpur town,” boasted tantrik Babaji Jena.
“I was reading newspaper sitting in a shop in the village and two persons moved a bamboo towards me for which some gullible villagers took it for granted that I committed theft in the house of Das. It is high time on the part of the police to arrest the tantriks who are spreading blind beliefs among the people,” demanded Sanatan Das, a villager.
Rationalists fear that such incidents would only increase if the State Government fails to step in and initiate stringent action against persons involved in spreading such blind beliefs.
“Bamboo catching thief is an old exercise and is nothing but a big fraud. It needs to be stopped immediately,” said a noted social worker Dr Suresh Chandra Dalai.