ASHA worker duped in ₹4 lakh scam, still believes fraudsters were ‘good people'

Mint

8 hours ago

An ASHA worker from Madhya Pradesh's Jabalpur fell prey to an elaborate lottery scam that left her not only financially devastated but also psychologically scarred. Pushpalata Jharia, 36, from the Bargi police station area, was lured by the promise of diamonds, gold, and a ₹ 10 lakh cash prize – a lie that spiralled into months of emotional manipulation, financial ruin, and a staged kidnapping.
Pushpalata, who balances her role as a health worker with raising two children and supporting a husband doing odd jobs, had only ever believed that rewards came from hard work. But a single phone call in March changed the course of her life.
The call came from a foreign number via a VPN line. The caller claimed Pushpalata had won a mega lottery but needed to pay a small processing fee to claim it. What began as a minor payment soon escalated into a string of transfers. The fraudsters kept her on the hook with repeated calls, threats, and false assurances.
At one point, she was told her Aadhaar card had been discovered with a courier carrying her 'lottery prize' who had been arrested. Unless she paid more, they warned, she too could be in trouble.
Trapped between fear and desperation, Pushpalata sent ₹ 4 lakh over a span of one and a half months. The money was sourced through loans from relatives and desperate pleas for help. 'She kept asking villagers and relatives for money. When we asked why, she said she was helping a relative,' her sister-in-law Asha Jharia told NDTV. 'Once, she even sent money using my daughter's phone. We begged her to stop — we barely had enough for ourselves.'
On April 23, Pushpalata visited her maternal home. Three days later, she vanished, telling her family she was headed to Bargi but never returned. A missing person's report was filed on May 4.
In reality, she had begun a lonely journey across several cities — Jabalpur, Mumbai, Surat, and Delhi — surviving on free meals, sleeping at stations, and taking up odd jobs. She would use borrowed phones to occasionally contact her family, all while continuing to send money to her unseen handlers.
The fraudsters later forced her to record a distressing video. In it, Pushpalata is seen crying and pleading for help. The video was sent to her husband, along with a demand for ₹ 2 lakh. The threats were severe: if the money wasn't paid, her body would be 'chopped into pieces and thrown into the forest.'
'She got a call in March about some prize. Slowly she started sending money. Then one day, we got a video where she was crying, and it said she'd been kidnapped. We were terrified,' her daughter Poonam said.
The incident left the family shaken. Pushpalata's mother approached the Madhya Pradesh High Court and filed a habeas corpus plea. On the court's orders, four police teams were assigned to trace her.
The breakthrough came when Pushpalata made a call from a stolen phone in Greater Noida. Authorities traced the number and found her on a quiet Monday afternoon.
'She was physically weak and mentally disoriented,' CSP Anjul Mishra of Bargi was quoted by NDTV. 'She's still under the illusion that this was all part of a bigger plan and she will be rewarded in the end.'
Even after her rescue, Pushpalata believes the fraudsters are 'good people' and that her prize is still real. Police officials have begun counselling her to help break the psychological hold of the scam.
Investigators are now working to trace the digital footprint of the scam, which appears to originate from foreign servers. 'We received multiple audio messages with horrific abuse,' said Mishra. 'The kidnapping video came from a foreign source. The country hosting the IP is not cooperating, making it harder to trace the fraudsters.'