Police unearth larger rental scam as actor Gehna Vashist gets her home back
Mumbai: Television actor Gehna Vashisht, who was swindled out of her ₹59 lakh worth Malad home last year, has managed to get back her home
Mumbai: Television actor Gehna Vashisht, who was swindled out of her ₹59 lakh worth Malad home last year, has managed to get back her home. The Malwani police, however, while investigating the cheating case has unearthed a larger scam.

According to the Malwani police officers, investigations have revealed that the estate agent — Waseem Shaikh, who conned Vashist, has cheated 20 other flat owners to the tune of ₹2 crore by forging documents with the help of an online registration agent and rented out the properties on a high deposit but did not pass off the benefits to the actual owners.
Although Shaikh was arrested Shaikh, by the Malwani police station, in July 2022, his accomplice Sujata Shetty is absconding. Vasisth met the former police commissioner and managed to get an FIR registered after 18 months of the fraud. Shaikh’s bail application was rejected by the Dindoshi Sessions court in December last year.
Vasisht, who got the possession of her house recently, said she had to fight against Shoaib and his mother Ruksana Zahid, who were tenants and were in occupation of her apartment, in Bombay high court to win back her house.
“After the anticipatory bail of the mother-son duo was rejected, they approached the HC in September 2022. The judge then asked them to vacate the house or get arrested but the two did not pay any heed to the court order,” said Vasisht.
In January 2022, the court ruled in favour of Vashist and ordered the two to vacate the flat. “After months, I got the possession of my house,” said Vasisht.
Vasisth aka Vandana Tiwari alleged that she had bought the flat in 2018 in the MHADA colony for ₹59 lakh and intended to rent it out. “I used to visit a medical store owned or run by Shaikh, who told me that he was an estate agent and would help me rent out the flat,” she said.
Vasisht managed to get her flat back, but there are nearly 20 other victims who have been deprived of their hard-earned property by Shaikh.
Police officers said that Shaikh had teamed up with at least three other brokers, one online registration agent and others to con more than 20 flat owners by promising them additional returns if they rented out their flat through him. Induced by Shaikh’s offer, several flat owners handed over their flats to be “managed” by Shaikh on the promise of certain fixed monthly ‘rents’, which were regular for the first few months. Later, the ‘rents’ stopped coming.
Shaikh then managed to get the house documents in the name of Shetty, who claimed to be the owner of the flat and rented it out to a third party on a huge deposit.
“We are now investigating and trying to find out how many more flat owners have been cheated by Shaikh and Shetty,” said a police officer from Malwani police station.
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