Engineer arrested for duping city woman through dating app

Forty-four-year-old allegedly cheating a 25-year-old-woman from Mumbai Central to the tune of ₹11.13 lakh by posing as an income-tax commissioner and officer with the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) on a dating app

Mumbai: A 44-year-old engineering diploma-holder was arrested by the Gamdevi police for allegedly cheating a 25-year-old-woman from Mumbai Central to the tune of ₹11.13 lakh by posing as an income-tax commissioner and officer with the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) on a dating app. The accused ran a UPSC coaching academy in Lucknow, and started cheating women after he suffered losses.

Engineer arrested for duping city woman through dating app

According to the police, the man met the woman on a dating app. As their friendship developed, he told her that he was associated with several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that were doing good work, and asked for her documents in order to make her a member of the NGOs. Using the documents, he took a personal loan of ₹500,000 and also convinced her to deposit ₹6.13 lakh in his bank account.

The arrested accused is identified as Rajesh Kumar Upadhyay, 44, a resident of Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh. “Upadhyay is a mechanical engineering diploma holder who left his job to start a UPSC academy. However, before the Covid-19 pandemic he suffered huge losses, which resulted in him shutting down the academy,” said Vijay Dandavate, police inspector, Gamdevi police station.

After closing the academy, Upadhyay started posing as Siddhant Dhawan, an income-tax commissioner, and sometimes as a RAW officer. “He put up this profile on several dating apps, and then approached women, promising them marriage,” said Dandavate. “He took documents from the complainant to ostensibly make her a member of an NGO but used them to take a loan in her name. He continued taking money from her on some pretext or the other from August 2021 to January 2022. When she refused to give any more, he threatened her that he could morph her photos and make them viral.”

After the complainant approached the police in May 2022, the cops booked Upadhyay under several sections of the Information Technology Act and the Indian Penal Code. “We tracked him down and arrested him,” said a police officer from Gamdevi police station. “We have also found several photos of women on his phone and are questioning him about it.”