Three pastors booked for duping people using pictures of fake orphans

The Pastors took photos of children in a village while giving them gifts and posted them on Facebook claiming these were orphans living on their charity and sought donations. However, the scam was busted after villagers spotted the photos.

Hyderabad – Andhra Pradesh Police registered a case against 3 Pastors for posting photos of children from families in a village on social media platforms to collect funds by claiming that they were orphans. One Pastor has been arrested while 2 are on the run. The incident came to light when villagers noticed Pastors taking photos of some of their children after giving them fruits. After this, the Pastors posted these photos on their Facebook accounts. They had captioned the pictures under the name of an NGO claiming that they were providing food and education to more than 50 orphans. They claimed someone from their family has died and the child is in a miserable condition.

Andhra Pradesh: Three pastors booked for duping people using pictures of fake orphans, collected lakhs in donationshttps://t.co/YAHKdwVr6c

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A villager noticed one such Facebook post and informed the others. Since the villagers realised that this was a setup to lure people into donating more money to them, the villagers confronted the Pastors. Fearing consequences, 2 of the 3 Pastors managed to flee from the village, Boddu Srinivas Rao, who runs Mother Teresa Children Seva Trust, was caught and thrashed by angry villagers. The villagers handed over the Pastor to the Police.

The accused would lure people into donating through bank account details or UPI. According to the Police, the pastors may have duped innocent people to the tune of several lakhs.