Couple held for cheating several women over matrimonial sites

Noida: Police arrested a wanted conman and his girlfriend for allegedly duping several women with fake profiles on matrimonial sites. The accused, who belongs to Ghaziabad, was wanted after he conned a Meerut based girl of Rs 25 lakh after promising to marry her. A reward of Rs 25, 000 was declared on both of them after the matter came to light.

Police began the investigation after a woman from Meerut approached them in 2011. In her complaint, she stated that she had registered herself on a matrimonial website to look for a groom. She received a request on the site from a man named Tarun Sharma from Ghaziabad. The man had cheated her of money after promising to marry her.

Following the incident, police teams were continuously making efforts to nab the accused and on Friday morning, police finally nabbed Tarun Sharma and his female accomplice from Sector 71 area of Noida.

"Upon interrogating it was found that Sharma and his accomplice had cheated many other women. Sharma created fake profiles showing himself as a director of a news channel and earning over Rs 20 lakhs per month. His girlfriend used to play his sister's role while they meet the prospect," said Ajay Pal Sharma, Senior Superintendent of police (SSP), Gautam Buddh Nagar.

After interacting with a woman for a few days, he would express his desire to marry her. "He borrowed large sums of money under different pretexts from various women. As the money is received the accused run away and the mobile phone was switched off," SSP added.

As Noida police started collecting information about him, they found that several cases had been registered against him across various police stations in Indore, Bhopal and Varanasi districts.

"He keeps changing names to cheat women and has produced fake Aadhaar cards as well. Both, the man and his girlfriend, has also booked ten Mahindra SUV cars in Lucknow against fake cheques which got bounced and they fled after selling the vehicle to a third party thereby causing a fraud of over a crore rupees," the officer added.

Police recovered a Hyundai i10 car, five mobile phones, fake Aadhaar cards, chequebooks, rent agreements, bank passbooks and other documents under the possession of the accused.

The officer further said that around six cases have been registered against them in various police stations across four districts. "They have been booked under the Sections 420, 406 and 377 of the India Penal Code and has been sent to jail," said the officer.