EOW freezes demat accounts of IPS officer’s husband, his mother

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police has frozen the demat accounts of Purshottam Chavan, 53, husband of IPS officer Rashmi Karandikar, and his mother, Urmila, in a cheating case.

MUMBAI: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police has frozen the demat accounts of Purshottam Chavan, 53, husband of IPS officer Rashmi Karandikar, and his mother, Urmila, in a cheating case. The police said that out of a defrauded amount of ₹24.78 crore, a major part of the money was invested in the name of Chavan and his mother in the share market. Police have found out that around ₹2.63 crore was transferred to the mother’s account.

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“We have frozen demat accounts of Purshottam Chavan and his mother Urmila. When we arrested Chavan on May 20 in a cheating case of ₹24.78 crore, his interrogation revealed that the money was transferred to various demat accounts and invested in share markets,” said a police officer from EOW.

The police said that he used to first transfer the money from one of his bank accounts to another account, and from there to his mother’s account, and then to the demat account. In this way, he kept transferring money from 2017 till 2024.

“We have written to the share broking firm and carried out a debit as well as credit freeze of the demat accounts of both Chavan and his mother,” said the police officer.

The EOW had in February this year registered a case against Chavan and eight others for allegedly defrauding 19 people of ₹24.78 crore by promising them government flats at discounted rates.

The fraud came to light after the ED arrested Chavan in connection with a ₹263.95 crore Income Tax refund fraud case. During investigation, the ED discovered various property registration documents at his home in Colaba, which were handed over to the EOW.

The EOW registered a fresh case based on the ED findings on a complaint by Kedar Dighevekar, 57, who was allegedly defrauded of ₹3.5 crore.

In his complaint, Dighevekar said he had contacted Chavan through friends in December 2019 as he wanted to purchase a flat. Chavan showed him multiple properties, including a posh project in Prabhadevi, where he decided to buy an apartment on the 23rd floor. Once he chose the flat, Chavan asked him to fill out an application form, purportedly of the urban development department, and make a payment of ₹3.5 crore for the flat, the market price of which was around ₹7-7.5 crore. Chavan also arranged a fake registration process at a sub-registrar office in Thane to convince Dighevekar about the legitimacy of the deal and secure payments from him.