For 15 years, Altaf Pasha, a scooter mechanic from Karnataka’s Pandavpura near Mysuru, lived with the supreme confidence that he would win a lottery and be able to give his family a better life. As usual, this year, when the Kerala Thiruvonam bumper lottery was announced, he asked a friend to purchase two tickets for Rs 500 each. Altaf had almost made up his mind to give away one of the tickets to a friend, but his wife, Seema, stopped him — that very ticket has now won him the bumper prize of Rs 25 crore.
An extremely thrilled Tanaz Fathima, Altaf’s 18-year-old daughter, who wants to be a doctor, said, “He was saying he would give away one of the tickets and keep the other. My mother insisted that he keep the lottery ticket bearing the number TG 434222. She asked him what if that is the lucky ticket that would change their lives? And this ticket won the Rs 25-crore prize.”
Pasha, according to his family, has been “obsessed” with buying lottery tickets for 15 years. The 42-year-old, on October 9, received a call from his lottery agent that he had won the Rs 25 crore bumper prize this year. The ticket was bought 15 days ago from a lottery vendor in Sulthan Bathery, Wayanad, by a friend for Altaf.
‘WE CAN BUY A HOUSE’
Altaf’s brother, who lives close to his younger sibling’s residence, has been busy receiving congratulations on his behalf. The family home in Pandavpura has been buzzing with friends and relatives dropping in to congratulate Altaf, who was on his way to Sulthan Bathery in Kerala, from where the ticket was bought, to collect his prize money.
“He would ask anybody going to Kerala to buy him a ticket. He was also very confident that he would win big. He always told me so. He would say that one day we would win big,” Mukhtar Pasha, Altaf’s elder brother, told News18.
When asked what Altaf plans to do with the prize money, the family said they want to clear all their loans. “My brother has such a huge heart. He wants to clear his loan of Rs 3 lakh first, which was taken to set up his scooter repair garage. He also spoke of clearing the loans of all his brothers and family members. He says there should always be a smile on everybody’s face,” said Mukhtar.
Still reeling with happiness, Tanaz said that Altaf had plans to build a small home. “With this bumper prize, we can buy a whole house for ourselves. My father dotes on me. He is yet to come to terms with what has happened, and then we will plan slowly,” said Tanaz, adding that before leaving for Kerala, Altaf had said he wanted his children and all his family members to benefit from the win.
Tanaz gleefully added that her brother, Mohammad Owais, is yet to believe that his father has won. “My father always said that he would win, so the family hoped they might win a few lakhs, but Rs 25 crore was never on our mind. Until now, my brother kept telling me it could be fake news. When he saw it on the local Malayalam news channel, he believed it,” she said with a giggle.
BONANZA FOR LOTTERY CENTRE OWNER, SUB-AGENT
This year, Kerala’s lottery department sold a record 71,43,008 tickets for its Thiruvonam bumper, and 80 lakh tickets were printed. Not just Altaf, the sub-agent who sold him the ticket, Nagaraju, as well as the lottery centre owner, A M Jineesh, are set to become rich.
Jineesh, who has been in the lottery business for 23 years, has hit a hat-trick when it comes to lottery tickets this year, as he has won substantial amounts as commission from the lucky tickets he sold.
His agency, S J Lucky Centre, at Panamaram in Wayanad, sold a Rs 10 lakh winning lottery in the New Year bumper, and last month, he sold a Karunya lottery ticket that fetched a prize of Rs 80 lakh. Altaf’s win will earn him a commission of Rs 25 lakh, while Nagaraju will get Rs 2.5 crore as part of his commission.
Nagaraju’s story is also out of the ordinary. A daily wage worker who also worked part-time at a lottery centre saved up enough money along with his brother to set up the ‘N G R Lucky Centre’ at Sulthan Bathery a few months ago. Located near the bus stand, as many people from Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu pass through the area, Nagaraju felt that it would give him better visibility in that location. He used to work as a sales assistant in a lottery outlet and sold tickets from 2008. Having to manage his daily needs as a daily wage worker, he used to also work as a labourer carrying loads until his brother and he made enough to set up a lottery outlet in Sulthan Bathery.
“We are thrilled. We don’t know what to do, but our parents and prayers have brought us this far,” he said.
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