Three months after a woman alleged that a man had cheated and robbed her by placing fake matrimonial ads, the Bengaluru police have arrested the man, and suspect that he may have similarly cheated 11 other women.
D M Ramakrishna alias Anil Prasad and also goes by several other names, was arrested by the Banashankari police from his home in T Narasipura in Mysuru district on September 17, and recovered gold and other valuables from him.
According to the complaint, Meena (name changed) contacted Ramakrishna after seeing a matrimonial advertisement in a Kannada newspaper in the last week of April. According to the ad, a man named Anil Prasad had mentioned that he was a widower and was looking to re-marry a woman suitable to his age.
She said that after two meetings, Anil asked Meena if he could introduce her to his parents for their approval, and told her to wear a lot of jewellery.
When Meena met him as decided, he did not take her to his parents. Instead, he took her to Hotel Maurya in Majestic for breakfast and later to a café in Mantri Square Mall in Malleshwaram, where she fainted after having a soft drink, Meena said in her complaint.
When she gained consciousness, she was not in the mall but in BDA complex in Banashankari where she had met him twice before. Her ornaments were also missing.
Ramakrishna was not reachable when Meena tried contacting him later, which is when she realised she had been cheated by him.
The Banashankari police said that they had traced him by tracking the number given to them by the woman.
“We are not sure how he got those sedatives. But, during interrogation, we found that man had committed 12 similar offences across the state and we are suspecting that there are many more,” said Lokesh, DCP (South).
Asked how he could have gone unquestioned by the security at the mall, police said that Ramakrishna would say that the unconscious woman was his wife who had viral fever. On his way to BDA, he stole all her gold jewellery.