An astrologer practising Agasthya Nadi in Hoysala Nagar was arrested for allegedly sexually harassing a 25-year-old techie working for a global IT giant in Electronics City. The victim, a native of West Bengal who has been staying in the city for the last 19 months, had gone to the astrologer Pandit Damodaran's house in Hoysala Nagar on Wednesday with a male friend to seek his predictions for the matrimonial alliances she was getting. The victim Payal (name changed) alleged that the astrologer hypnotised her and made her drink some `holy water' after which he sexually harassed her.

"Except for the astrologer, nobody was there. He made my friend wait outside the house and took me inside the room and locked the door from inside. I was inside the room for almost three hours. The first one hour went off well with most of his predictions being correct. It increased my faith in him but what happened next shook me as it was a horrible experience," Payal told BM. The victim said she managed to escape by promising the astrologer that she would be back the next day. "I went to my friend who was on the road and narrated the incident. We immediately rushed to the station and filed a complaint. The police acted swiftly and arrested him," she said.