Three women in Tamil Nadu were conned into shaving off their hair to supposedly prevent a new Covid-19-like disease, Malaysia Nanban reported.
The ordeal began when residents in a village in Salem received calls from a man claiming to be from the government.
He told the women that a new disease has been spreading through human hair and the government was giving 15,000 rupees (RM640) as aid money to women who shave their heads to stop its spread.
Men who shave their heads would receive 6,000 rupees (RM250), he claimed.
He convinced around 20 people to agree to shave their heads by giving their names and family details, making it look like a legitimate call.
Three women went ahead with the plan and sent photo evidence to the number.
However, they realised they had been pranked when they tried to call the number to claim their 15,000 rupees, only to realise the number was unreachable.
Online reports claimed that the man behind the scam has been arrested.
(The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.)
