Fool's oil
"Are you suffering from rheumatic fever? Scratching your skin off for eczema? Writhing in pain with fractured bones? Battling asthma? Fighting diabetes? Enduring indescribable pain and shame due to piles or sexual diseases?
"One bottle of these oils will rid you of all these ailments," guaranteed Babul Mia Sapuria after a well-rehearsed speech, holding up a small vial of his "miracle oils" before a horde of curious onlookers near Khilgaon Matir Masjid in the capital.
He had many such vials of different sizes containing different kinds of "magical oils" in his bag. A gentle massage or consumption of the oils would heal any of the diseases, claimed Babul Mia.
So what's in these so-called potions that can cure so quickly that most advanced medicines available on earth even fail to cure in years?
"Different herbs, reptiles and other animals," claims a laminated leaflet kept in front of his makeshift shop on a pavement.
The list of animals includes snakes, mongooses, frogs, crows, varanidaes, owls and other birds, some of which are endangered species. He kills them to make his "cure-alls", which may put him behind bars.
Trading, importing, exporting or possessing some of the animals he kills to make the oils is a criminal offence under the Wildlife (Protection and Safety) Act 2012, said Tapan Kumar Day, conservator of forests (wildlife and nature conservation circle).
According to section 14 (a) of the act, one could spend one year in jail or pay Tk 50,000 fine or both. If someone repeats the offence, the jail term may go up to three years and fine to Tk 2 lakh.
"Do you know you could be jailed for what you do?" these correspondents asked Babul in the afternoon of August 14.
"No. I've been in the business for around 30 years now. Before me, my father ran this for around 70 years. But we never heard anything like what you said," claimed the 60-year-old man, who currently lives in the city's Badda area with his family.
Where did Babul learn to make the oils?
As for academic studies, he couldn't go beyond the second grade. But according to the leaflet, he learnt the "secrets" of making the oils during his seven-year-long apprenticeship with a shaman in Kamrup (which he spelt as Kamruk), a district in India's Assam known for tantric practices.
And his business is going quite well. He has some 100 regular customers, with new ones seeing him every day, he boasted.
Each vial of the oils costs between Tk 30 and Tk 500 and his daily sales range between Tk 200 and Tk 800, he claimed.
"I sell the oils for the benefit of the people. I also earn my living through this," said the self-proclaimed philanthropist shaman, who has fathered as many as nine children.
Some stuffed birds and animals were lined up on a plastic sheet on the footpath to draw people's attention and he surely succeeded in doing so as a curious crowd formed around him soon after the shop was laid out.
No matter what Babul says to fool the gullible commoners, physicians are far from buying his claims.
These shamans, or kabirajs, as they are locally known, have no scientific knowledge about diseases and their treatments, said M Amjad Hossain, professor and head of Orthopedic and Trauma Surgery at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Sometimes, people with displaced bones take so-called medicines but the bones reattach themselves in a natural process and the shamans take credit for this, he said.
"They are actually exploiting general people's ignorance to do business," the doctor said, adding that there are many such Babuls across the country.
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