Last month there was news about ‘rice puller’ trying to cheat a businessman of Rs.10 Lakhs. Honestly, till I read this article, I had no clue about ‘rice pullers’; I knew only about rice prices! (The price per kg of Rice was Rs.1.25 during early 1980s and it is pulled to Rs.74 in June, 2014!)

What is rice puller?

They are antique metal objects which supposedly attract grains of rice! (Strange isn’t it?) This kind of metal objects (magical) attracts extremely high values! (How is it? God only knows). That is why, probably, rice pulling is a scam in India. This kind of scam is happening time and again across the country for the last several decades.

The latest incidence happened in Bangalore (June 2014). There are very interesting stories about ‘Rice pullers’. Two of them are –

Story One: One day Devdas Baba met Delhi based businessmen and reportedly offered them a rice puller, that he could get from one of his disciples. The baba then told them to arrange Rs.2 Crore to buy ‘rice puller’. He had also convinced the ‘buyers’ that this ‘copper iridium’ is used by space organizations and once they buy this piece from him, they can in turn sell it to NASA for Rs.1000 Crores! Can you believe this story? Looks fake isn’t it? But the fact is that Mr. Baba collected Rs.1 Crore as advance and escaped to Russia! The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police registered a case against him. (April, 2011)

Story Two: A group of five people at Kollam (Kerala State) were trying to sell an East India Company Petromax (Lamp) for Rs.25 Crores through a broker to a British National camping in Bangalore. The group apparently was claiming that the Petromax is a rice puller. These people told the police that NASA would pay even Rs.500 Crore for this piece of metal! (May, 2014)

Why people get attracted (like rice) to these metal pieces?

Maybe the belief that some antique metal which has magical powers can bring good fortunes Some of them believe that such metals are much sought after as rare alloy for space applications. If rice pullers can be sold for Rs.500 or Rs.1000 Crore, why these agents selling for a pittance! Can’t they do this job themselves? I can’t believe that people are there to pay and buy such stuff in India. So long as people are there to get fooled, people will be there to fool them!