Police stated on Monday that a mysterious baba who claimed to be a reincarnation of Goddess Kali and be able to heal all diseases reportedly defrauded hundreds of people in Uttar Pradesh.
The purported baba, identified as Mukesh Nonia, is at present missing.
He has been charged under the Drugs and Magic Remedies Act and other sections of the Indian Penal Code by the UP police.
They also went to his native village, Kaimur, in the district of Bihar, hunting for him on Sunday but couldn’t find him.
The squad that searched Mukesh’s home was led by sub inspector Sufiyan Khan, the station house officer of the Sujabad police station in the Varanasi area.
In order for people to recognise him and alert the police, a lookout notice on the front door of his home has been pasted.
Sub-inspector Khan reported that Mukesh was holding a healing darbar late at night at a temple outside the village of Domari, close to Varanasi. His darbar drew between three and four thousand people.
The police were notified and a case was subsequently filed following a fight between Mukesh and temple priest Ram Bharos over the distribution of money collected.
People from MP, Bihar, and UP would travel to the darbar and pay the baba to employ black magic on them to heal their ailments. After the police arrived, the priest and Baba both left the area. According to authorities, a manhunt has been started to find the accused.
Anil Singh, an ex-Mukhiya, and other locals asserted that Mukesh worked as a labourer in Andhra Pradesh for years.
After 18 years of penance, he returned to his home town two years ago wearing a red saree, red lipstick, and vermilliob, proclaiming that he had attained the powers of goddess Shitala (a form of goddess Kali). He said the goddess had given him the ability to cure terminal illnesses, including cancer and infertility, among others.
He further set up a darbar near Kali temple to heal the ailments of hundreds of people, mostly women, coming from neighbouring districts.
Several individuals were wounded in a fight between his followers and locals last month, and a police report was made at Chainpur police station.
Mukesh was accused by the villagers of being a scammer who pretended to have supernatural abilities in order to defraud people and demand money.