Rs 4,000 was all it cost Nandini to learn that a “VIP darshan” at Varanasi’s Kashi Vishwanath Temple was a fraud. A police inspector got it back for her within hours of her complaint.
It happened during the Sawan rush. Lakhs of devotees had packed the temple, one of the twelve Jyotirlingas, on the first Monday of the month. Nandini, from Mysuru in Karnataka, had come with her husband Vinayak and two others. The queue for darshan was long, and the group was struggling with the wait.
Near the temple, a man dressed as a priest approached them. He said he could get all four inside quickly. Nandini believed him and sent Rs 4,000 online. The man vanished almost as soon as the payment landed, and the family spent the next stretch searching the temple premises for him.
A complaint to the nearest uniform
Nandini went to Inspector Shivakant Mishra of Sigra police station, who was posted nearby on Sawan security duty. He took the complaint on the spot and began looking for the suspect.
Police identified the accused as Basant Pandey. They found him, recovered the money and handed the full amount back to Nandini.
A video from the incident shows Mishra telling the shaken family he would make sure they got their darshan. He kept that promise. The inspector said he arranged for Nandini, her husband and the other two to enter the temple without further trouble, so the pilgrimage could go ahead as planned.
