Six held for cheating housewives in Manipur

Members of a civil society organisation at Moreh -- the border town of Manipur -- on Thursday rounded up six persons hailing from Bihar on the charge that they cheated several women in Nagaland, Manipur and some other states in this region.

M. Thoiba, the General Secretary of Meitei Council Moreh (MCM), a civil society organisation, said all six were intercepted while trying to flee Moreh in a bus.

Thoiba said: "Their modus operandi was that they would visit the houses and convince women that their gold ornaments would be cleaned up in a few minutes, and they were happy with the brightening of their gold ornaments. They are also good at making new designs of ornaments within minutes."

According to him, as a woman at Moreh approached a local gold smith to show her newly "modified" ring, the gold smith said there were some extra materials in the ring apart from gold.

On hearing this, the woman ran out and informed the MCM members who intercepted the six cheats. The cheats confessed to their crime and paid back the money they had fleeced from them.

They disclosed that they had come from Nagaland in the first week of this month.

Although MCM and other voluntary organisations released them, police interrogation continues to find out in which other parts of Northeast they have cheated gullible housewives.

--IANS

il/nir