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The Great Indian Bizarre: Scammer dials Thrissur police, mutton mayhem in Mirzapur

Every day, India throws up headlines that boggle the imagination. Here's The Telegraph Online's weekly compilation of the oddest news through the week gone by

Our Web Desk
Published 17.11.24, 10:14 AM
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Fraudster posing as ‘Mumbai cop’ dials Thrissur cyber cell

In this story we’ve got a scammer who couldn’t scam his way out of a video call. 

A fraudster posing as a Mumbai police officer met his match in the Thrissur police’s cyber cell, and the internet hasn’t stopped laughing since.

Our scammer, channelling some ‘Singham’-Ajay Devgan energy, confidently dialled his victim…a Thrissur cop. (Of course thinking he was a clueless target).

Decked out in a fake police uniform that screamed, “Bollywood extra,” he began his act. When asked, “Where are you?” the officer replied, “My camera is not working properly, sir.” 

Unrelenting, the scammer demanded the camera be switched on.

When the Thrissur officer flipped his camera, the scammer’s Gabbar Singh-like swagger melted  into a Kapil Sharma Comedy show.

“What do you do?” asked the cop, clearly enjoying the awkward silence. The scammer, now fully aware of his blunder, had nowhere to run.

The officer didn’t miss a beat, delivering a mic-drop worthy line: "Stop doing this work... I have your address, your location, and everything. This is cyber cell. It's best you stop doing this work."

The clip, with background music and cuts to match, has earned the officer fan status. One X user wrote, “Shock laga scammer ko…Scammer be like Sir, this is a fancy dress competition…”

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Mirzapur banquet turns into WWE over missing mutton 

In Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, a banquet hosted by a political party reportedly turned into chaos when the unthinkable happened; the mutton chunks ran out. 

The event, hosted at a lawmaker’s office, was meant to be a peaceful community dinner. The peaceful bit fell off when an unlucky guest was served a plate of gravy with no sign of mutton boti in it. 

Offended by the lack of protein, he unleashed a series of abuses at the server. When asked to calm down, the guest reportedly answered with a slap. 

The server happened to be the brother of the chauffeur of the lawmaker host.

What started as a food fight quickly escalated into a full-blown brawl, with diners clashing over the elusive botis. It was pure pandemonium. Many were injured. One injured (and sad) guest was seen leaving the venue on his bike for treatment. 

Many attendees were seen departing with portions of mutton and roti in hand. 

The host lawmaker's man in charge dismissed it all with a shrug. “Just a few intoxicated villagers,” he said. “The rest ate peacefully after the situation was resolved.”

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Wedding season duty for Agra police

You’re at a wedding, caught between dodging that persistent aunt who’s asking about your marriage plans and waiting for the DJ to play Gallan Goodiyan. Suddenly, a suspicious uncle in a kurta swoops in and stops a young boy sneaking around the jewellery table. Plot twist. The uncle is an undercover cop. 

It could happen, if the wedding is in Agra, where police personnel are set to infiltrate weddings; not for the buffet or bad dance moves, but to nab thieves who prey on the unassuming.

"Members of the force would be deployed at wedding venues in simple clothes, and they would attend the functions like family members," one of the city’s top cops explained to the media. 

Dividing the district into 18 'clusters' of marriage lawns and banquet halls, each cluster will have three teams of officers who’ll rotate duties. 

"Gangs target parents of the bride and groom, and steal their belongings, including jewellery and cash," the senior officer revealed, making it clear that the stakes are no laughing matter. Even if the undercover operation sounds like a Bollywood plot.

Residents of Agra may also inform local police stations so that patrolling can be done near their house in their absence. In other words, the cops won’t just guard your jewellery at the wedding — they’ll babysit your empty house, too.

So if you’re at an Agra wedding and you see some men suspiciously avoiding dancing no matter how loud Kala Chashma plays, you know who they are.

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Why Bengalis are loving IMD advice for Delhi pollution

If you have ever wondered what the Bengali idiom “put mustard oil in your nose and sleep” means, a top official of the India Meteorological Department has revealed the answer. 

According to Anand Sharma, additional director general of the IMD, one way to fight Delhi’s toxic air is to rub a little mustard oil up there.

“Luckily, people are using masks because of Covid-19…. In addition to that, people can also use natural remedies, which earlier people used in their daily lives, like they can put mustard oil in their nose that trap some of the particles," he was quoted as saying.

Moral of the story. Don’t ignore old Bengali proverbs.

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Shahjahanpur family turns bike into SUV

In an attempt to redefine "family bonding," a Shahjahanpur family decided to pile onto a single bike in UP’s Shahjahanpur.

The video, spinning heavily on social media, shows a husband and wife along with their six children (and a mattress, bucket, and other household essentials) squeezing into positions you didn't think were humanly possible.

The man was at the helm, steering the bike like a seasoned pro, while his wife held on to the back for dear life. Three kids sat on the petrol tank, and the rest were hanging on in various acrobatic positions…one even clutching a baby. 

Naturally, a traffic cop stopped them, looked them up and down, counted the people like he was checking tickets at an amusement park, and said, “Shouldn’t you follow traffic rules?” 

One X user replied to the video: “Arrey management dekho, sab adjust ho gae hain ek hi bike par (Look at the management, everyone did fit on one bike).”

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