'Yoga guru' swindles European women

BHOPAL: Two young European women got lured by the promise of becoming yoga gurus only to be taken for a royal ride for which they paid 1,450 euro each.
Els Harmsen, 25, from Holland and Ilka Braunstein, 27, from Germany landed in Khajuraho on July 25 with the hope that within a month they would become official representatives of yoga. The crash course to become yoga gurus was priced at 1,450 euro.
Four days later on Friday, Harmsen and Braunstein were sitting in the Bamita police station, 11 km from the tourist town of Khajuraho, in Chhattarpur district narrating the story of how they had been duped.The two women said that in pursuit of their dream career, they searched internet sites and came across www.arihantayoga.org.
Like Harmsen and Braunstein, 20 other European tourists flew in to Khajuraho to join Arihanta Yoga Prasikshan Kendra. Out of 22 tourists who registered and made payments for the yoga course, 20 are women.
“The photographs on the website were so beautiful. I wanted to get trained there with guidance from qualified trainers,'' Harmsen told the Chhattarpur police.
“A case has been registered for cheating and investigations are on,'' additional superintendent of police Sunil Tiwari said. The mastermind of the fraud had escaped before the police reached the spot.