A 32-year-old Indian man admitted to cutting off four fingers on his left hand to avoid having to continue working as a computer operator at a relative’s company.

Learning to say ‘no’ sounds easy, but for some people, it can be harder than crippling themselves for life. Case in point, a Gujarat man who staged an “accident” that left him missing four fingers on his left hand to avoid having to tell his boss that he wanted to quit his job. Earlier this month, Mayur Tarapara showed up at a police station in his native city of Surat to report that four mingers were missing from his left hand. He claimed to have been riding his motorcycle to a friend’s house when he suddenly felt dizzy and passed out on the side of the road. When he woke up 10 minutes later, four fingers on his left hand had been chopped off. Police initially believed that the man’s fingers had been stolen for black magic rituals, but their investigation found huge holes in Mayur’s story.

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The bizarre case was registered at Amroli police station in Surat before being transferred to the city’s Crime Branch. Investigators started checking CCTV footage in the area where the victim claimed to have passed out as well as investigating eye-witnesses, but virtually nothing checked out. Mayur appeared to park his bike near a ring road before casually walking away and returning with an injured left hand. Plus, no one had seen him passed out by the side of the road. Pressed by police, the man admitted to cutting the fingers off himself.

“Tarapara confessed that he bought a sharp knife from a shop near Char Rasta in Singanpore, a police official told The Hindu. “Four days later, on Sunday night, he went to Amroli Ring Road and parked his motorcycle there. At around 10pm, he cut off four fingers with a knife and tied a rope near the elbow to prevent blood flow. He then put the knife and fingers in a bag and threw it away.”

Mayur Tarapara reluctantly told investigators that he resorted to maiming himself because he didn’t want to work at his relative’s diamond company anymore. He didn’t want to tell them, though, but missing four fingers made him unfit for the job.

Police managed to find a bag with three of the man’s fingers, but they are still trying to get more information from him to piece this bizarre story together.

“He admitted that he didn’t want to work in the diamond factory and had planned to chop off his four fingers so that he did not have to work in the diamond factory,” a crime inspector said. “We are trying to dig out more information from him.”