A man who claimed to have '350 girlfriends' duped a woman by marrying her and running away with her money.
It seems like K. Venkat Ratna Reddy is a real-life Don Juan or closer home Rickie Bahl. The smooth-talker apparently duped women by promising to marry them, reported India Today. The Central Crime Station (CCS), unit of the Hyderabad Police arrested him. Reddy was picked up from Guntur district in Andhra Pradesh and also has nine cases of fraud against him in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Reddy carried out a long-distance con in the US where he put up his profile on a matrimonial site and started approaching prospective brides. He married his first victim and duped her of US $30,000. The family approached the police and lodged a complaint against Reddy and the police tracked him to find he had duped a Canadian woman as well.
Despite, being a non-graduate, Reddy’s communication skills helped him pull off the con and his social media profile claimed he had ‘350 girlfriends’.
The police told India Today: "We are writing to the Visakhapatanam police on how an offender wanted in several crimes secured a passport. We are also writing to the matrimonial site to provide more information on his profile besides telling them to remove it from the site." Reddy had earlier arrested in 2012 for posing as an IRS officer and demanding money from Telugu filmmakers.
Earlier in the year, the Modi government had laid down guidelines to check misuse of matrimonial websites. A source had said: “Matrimonial websites are intermediary under section 2 of Information Technology Act and they are mandated to follow IT Act.” With this advisory coming in place, users of matrimonial websites will be required to submit or upload true copies of supporting documents such as proof of identity and address for the purpose of user verification.
"It is advisable that matrimonial websites should provide a list of legally verifiable document which shall serve proof of identity," the advisory said. The users will also require to confirm their intent for using the platform, it said.
The new advisory clearly bars websites to disguise dating platform as matrimonial websites. The advisory also said that "service providers should make a declaration that website is strictly for matrimonial purpose only and not a dating website and should not be used for posting obscene material." Government has advised that matrimonial websites should caution users against possible fraudsters and encourage users to report any fraudulent activity on the website.
It said that users need to verify credentials of the statements that matrimonial websites do not authenticate about any profile unless specifically stated. Matrimonial websites under new rules will be required to name grievances redressal officer on their portals.
Besides, the new rule mandates "matrimonial websites should store IP address of profile creator for one year from the date of activation," it said.
With inputs from agencies
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