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Police arrest Uttarakhand’s ‘mushroom lady’, her brother for financial fraud
The arrest of Divya and her brother Rajpal Rawat came on Friday, more than a year after a complaint was filed by Jitendra Nandkishor Bakhada from Bhukum in Pune district in 2022
The Pune rural police have arrested a woman and her brother from Uttarakhand for allegedly duping a businessman from Pune district of ₹57.58 lakh by promising profit in business ventures, officials said on Monday.
Recipient of Nari Shakti Puraskar 2016 presented by the then President Pranab Mukherjee, entrepreneur Divya Rawat is known as “mushroom lady” for her innovative approach to mushroom farming that created jobs and breathed new life into desolated villages in Uttarakhand.
The arrest of Divya and her brother Rajpal Rawat came on Friday, more than a year after a complaint was filed by Jitendra Nandkishor Bakhada from Bhukum in Pune district in 2022.
According to complainant Bakhada, who runs a software consultancy firm, an illness in 2019 pushed him to explore alternative opportunities in the agriculture sector. Through social media he came to know about mushroom farming in Dehradun where he contacted one Shakuntala Rai.
The complainant visited Dehradun to undergo technical training and met Divya for the first time. Later, he started contributing financially to various ventures run by Divya, including Soumya Foods, mountain mushroom and other firms as a ‘business partner’. Hence, without any formal agreement, Bakhada invested ₹1.20 crore from 2019 to 2022, in ventures managed by Divya.
On June 7, 2022, Bakhada sent Divya a detailed break up of business expenditure and asked her to pay ₹57,58,197 for his contribution. However, Divya allegedly threatened and registered a case against him in Uttarakhand.
The complainant said, “As a partner, I had invested ₹1.20 crore, but when I asked for my share, the brother-sister duo threatened me to file a rape case and demanded ₹32 lakh from me.”
Manoj Kumar Yadav, senior inspector, Paud Police Station, said, “Prima facie it seems the suspect lured the complainant to invest as business partner and later threatened to file cases when he asked for his investment. Our team visited Dehradun and collected evidence.”
According to Yadav, the complainant was asked to tell the siblings to visit Pune and get ₹10 lakh as demand draft from Bakhada to settle the account.
“When the duo turned up to accept the demand draft, we arrested the duo,” he said.
A case has been registered at Paud police station under Sections 420, 417, 506, 34, 467, 468, 471 and 120 (B) of the Indian Penal Code against the accused.
