In yet another instance of a baba proving to be a black sheep, the Charkop police arrested a tantrik who had been posing as a do-gooder, getting a 16-year-old girl drunk and molesting her for several months. They have rescued three other girls, believed to be around 13 years old, who were also living with him. According to the police, Anil Bharate (67) used to target girls from poor families. The family members of the 16-year-old survivor, who live in Kandivli, had been similarly tricked by Bharate, and they had allowed her to live with the tantrik in a flat that he had taken on rent in Virar.

This report, that made the front pages of this newspaper yesterday, is unfortunately familiar to so many we read. A conman, posing as a baba, took advantage of the poverty of these girls. While this is one case, there have been so many which have had ordinary persons charlatans, in fact, posing as divine and devout claiming to possess miraculous healing powers, who then use their mysterious hold on people to deprive them of money or even resort to sexual molestation as we know, now.