Mumbai: Resembling the plot of Bollywood flick Dolly Ki Doli, a 26-year-old Kalyan woman allegedly duped three men she married in succession by stealing cash and jewellery worth Rs 62 lakh from them since 2014. The Kalyan Bazarpeth police has arrested Mitali Kulkarni for cheating and fraud after her former husbands came together to expose her activities.
Kulkarni’s first husband had caught her selling stolen jewellery and handed her over to the police. Kulkarni has also been accused of duping certain jewellers by buying jewellery from them by giving cheques that bounced. In a bid to persuade the jewellers to allow her to pay by cheque, Kulkarni had allegedly introduced herself as an Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) officer.
When The Asian Age contacted Mitali’s first husband, Sanjay Shende (name changed on request), he said, “We met through a common friend in the year 2013, and started dating soon. Then she told me that she was an ATS officer and was posted at a good office in the city. Soon after our wedding the money and jewellery from my house started vanishing. When we confronted her, she left the house, only to never return.”
Mr Shende added, “One day, she called up to say that she was married to Kedar Shinde and had no business with me. But a few months later, Shinde turned up at my doorstep and confronted me about my wedding with Kulkarni. That is when I knew that she had done the same thing with Kedar as well and had duped him of Rs 27 lakh. It was then that we lodged a complaint against Kulkarni, but she was absconding, could never trace her.”
Investigating officer of the case, Firoz Shaikh told The Asian Age, “We have booked Kulkarni under Section 420 of IPC for cheating and fraud. Kulkarni has allegedly married thrice, and we are tracing her third husband, while three jewellers had filed a case of cheating against her. We are also probing the case.”
Mr Shaikh added, “On Sunday, Kulkarni was caught red handed selling the jewellery to a jeweller posing as an ATS officer, to whom she had given a cheque of Rs 86,000, despite having only Rs 6.86 in her bank account.”
