Hidden camera exposes fake aamil who turns tricks to offer miracles

Shikanja team works with police to nab suspect.

KARACHI:

When you see a man stooped with age, the last thing you would expect is for him to prey on women who seek his help.

But this indeed was Shahid’s trade as one woman discovered. She has now come forward to help the police expose the fake aamil, who offered to help women in exchange for their dignity.

The Surjani Town resident’s exploitations were caught on hidden camera and aired along with the police investigation in an episode of Shikanja on Express News on January 29.

A woman, S, who had at one point consulted him, assisted the police.

With the camera hidden on her, she approached Shahid, requesting his assistance to rid herself of her husband’s second wife and his mother. Shahid is recorded as telling her that he would help her in exchange for Rs250 for ‘zaicha’ or a payment for astrological calculations, mithai or sweets, and sex.

Shahid insisted that he would help her only if she fulfilled his demand then and there - before his son returned home. S escaped under the pretext of returning in half an hour. She then reported him to the police.

The police raided Shahid’s shop and confiscated a number of suspect items, including some tattered old books, graphs with Arabic inscriptions, women’s clothes and bottles.

Shahid pleaded with the police for leniency. “I am in considerable distress, my son,” he said. “I help out the poor and those in need by giving them taweez.” He claimed that he hadn’t had any customers since he was arrested by the Garden police six months ago.

S used to be Shahid’s neighbour at one point. She married a second time after her husband passed away and visited Shahid hoping that he would help her persuade her second husband to allow them to keep her child from her first marriage.

“He normally takes Rs250 on the first visit for ‘zaicha’,” she explained. He demanded Rs7,000 from her when she visited him again, which she gave. He then told her that he would call jinns at 2am that night and she would have to pay for the items he would need to summon them. He asked her to light a lamp in a temple for 40 days in addition to visiting him three times during this period for sex. “The ground slipped from beneath my feet when I heard him say that,” she told the police. While she was explaining her story, Shahid kept swearing that she was leveling false accusations.

“Look at your age and look at what you are doing,” said police officer Asim Siddiqi to Shahid. “This woman is your daughter’s age!”

“She is like a daughter to me,” Shahid insisted.

At the end of the episode, Shahid came around to confessing, however.

“This case serves as a warning to all the women out there who hope to wreck other people’s homes by using taweez and humiliating themselves,” said officer Siddiqi. “If this man was actually the magician that he claims to be, wouldn’t he be able to bring back his own wife who ran off?”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3^rd, 2013.