Chennai, June 08: Inspired by a TV show that brought prospective brides and grooms on stage, a 34-year-old man took 17 women for a ride with promises of marriage but found his match in a woman sub-inspector as he fell into her honey-trap and landed in police custody on Sunday evening.
Ravichandran alias Ashok (34), a rice merchant in Dharapuram, was caught at the rendezvous fixed by Sub-Inspector Mangala Lakshmi on Chengalpattu Bypass Road. Posing as an IT company employee from Chennai, Mangala Lakshmi had been speaking to Ravichandran over the phone for the last two months after a 37-year-old woman from Porur filed a complaint with the Cyber Crime Cell of the Suburban Commisionerate in March 2010, about a man who swindled Rs 2 lakh after promising to marry her.
Ravichandran confessed to having cheated four women from Chennai, Bangalore and Sathyamangalam of over Rs 7 lakh. He would pick up contact details of widows and spinsters from a magazine titled Kalyana Malai, and promise to marry them. Then, he would come up with a sob story and ask for money. After collecting the debit card of the woman he would vanish, with the money. “His intention was to make money. He called 17 women but confessed to have taken money from four. We are investigating,” said S R Jangid, Suburban Police Commissioner.
–Agencies–