The couple, identified as Virendra Asthana, 32, and Nupur 29, are natives of Kanpur. They had recently duped a Bhusawal-based family in similar fashion.
A married couple, who posed as siblings to dupe three families of Rs5lakh each, has been arrested. The husband, pursuing a pilot training course in South Africa, used to upload his profile on matrimonial websites. After he was approached by the girl’s family, he and his wife would extract money from them.
The couple, identified as Virendra Asthana, 32, and Nupur 29, are natives of Kanpur. They had recently duped a Bhusawal-based family in similar fashion, but were nabbed by the Malwani police on Sunday.
The couple had got married four years ago. According to the police, Virendra wanted to complete his course, but was short of money. “He had to give two exams and did not have the Rs4 lakh examination fee. When he could not get the money from any other source, he decided to cheat people,” said police sub-inspector Jayendra Tambe.
An officer said Virendra had uploaded his profile on a matrimonial website in the first week of January. His profile lured several families. “A 23-year old Bhusawal girl, an MBA student had seen Virendra’s profile and told her family to get in touch with him,” said an officer of Malwani Police Station.
The family met Virendra and fixed the ring ceremony for January 24, said police.
“Virendra introduced his wife as his sister Dr Priya Saxena. Between January 14 and 24, Virendra took Rs3lakh from the girl’s family after giving various reasons. On the day of ring ceremony the family also gave gold jewellery worth Rs1.25lakh to Virendra,” Tambe said.
On January 27, Nupur called the girl’s father and told him that Virendra and his friend had met with an accident in Singapore. She asked for Rs7lakh to save Virendra’s life. The father could only arrange for Rs2lakh.
“The father then smelled a rat and approached the Malwani police,” said a police officer. “We went along with the girl’s father to the hotel where Nupur was staying. When we interrogated her, she spilled the beans,” said deputy commissioner of police Sanjay Banerjee of (Zone XII).
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