This MBA student learnt the art of conning well

What a tangled web we weave, when we first practise to deceive. Sir Walter Scott may have said this in an entirely different context. But it makes for an apt description of the modus operandi of a deceitful suitor, who landed in the police net, after deceiving many.

What a tangled web we weave, when we first practise to deceive. Sir Walter Scott may have said this in an entirely different context. But it makes for an apt description of the modus operandi of a deceitful suitor, who landed in the police net, after deceiving many.

HT Image

Here, 'deceitful' too, takes on a whole new meaning, as his latest victim Shraddha (name changed) found out.
Shraddha had met him on a social networking site and they had been in touch for a month. So, when Arnav asked her out for a movie, she readily agreed.

So, on May 6, when she returned from her hometown, Arnav was there at the New Delhi Railway station to pick her up. He drove her to PVR Saket and on reaching the mulitplex, asked her to get the movie schedule. Meanwhile, he waited in his car.

When she returned, Arnav made a strange request to her. He told her to drop her luggage home and then return to watch the movie. When Shraddha reached home, she realised that her laptop bag was stuffed with stones and her laptop was missing. That was not all.

Also missing was her wallet and mobile phone, which had been flicked from her handbag. Even though she rushed downstairs to catch hold of Arnav, he had sped away.

A frantic Shraddha tried calling him only to realise that he had deleted his phone number and messages from her mobile phone. Shraddha then reported the matter to the local police, who, after investigating the case for three days, nabbed Arnav.

On interrogating him, they found out his real name — Jaffar Hussain — and the real extent of his fraud.

He did not do it for money, or so it seems. This 28-year-old conman had worked in the credit cards division of a multinational bank in Dubai. Later, he had relocated to Delhi and worked as senior relationship manager in India Bulls Security Ltd in Karol Bagh.

In January this year, he left the job to pursue MBA through distance learning.

Police officials said Hussain was married. He had entered into matrimony last year and had left his wife in Mathura, his hometown. Hussain told the police that he had committed similar offences in the past. But nobody, except Shraddha, had reported the matter to the police. "Hussain has an account on a social networking website. We traced him through that. Since the girl had no information about the man except his profile on the website, we took out details from there," said a senior police officer, requesting anonymity.

His mobile phone contained numbers of girls he had been pursuing through text messages. "Jaffar had done this to many girls but this was the first time he got caught," said Chhaya Sharma, DCP (South).