Palghar: Women cheated of Rs 41.40 lakh; one booked

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Palghar: A man has been booked for allegedly cheating more than 100 women to the tune of Rs 41.40 lakh by promising them higher returns and facilitating their participation in programmes of "big industrialists" here in Maharashtra, police said on Monday. An offence under IPC section 420 (cheating) has been registered against the accused, Mukram Ali Mohammad Ansari, who has not been arrested yet, senior inspector Vasant Labdhe of the Nallasopara police station said.

As many as 104 women, all residents of Nallasopara in Palghar district, were cheated by the accused, he said. According to the complaint lodged by victims, Ansari made women to pay Rs 35,000 each for registering themselves for participating in programmes of "big industrialists" in adjoining Mumbai, he said.

The accused also told them they would get Rs 15 lakh in return and issued them fake DDs for the sum, the senior inspector said. In addition, he took Rs 5 lakh from most of the victims for entering into MoUs for encashing the DDs, Labdhe said. However, Ansari neither returned the original sum taken from each of them nor the higher amount promised by him, prompting the women to file the complaint, he said.

The entire episode took place between December 2017 and February 2019 and the swindled amount stood at Rs Rs 41.40 lakh, the police officer said. According to the police, one more complaint has been registered against the same accused with the Tulinj police station in Palghar district. In the second complaint, Ansari has been accused of cheating around 40 women in the same fashion, but the amount involved was still being ascertained, the police added.

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