The police have arrested a woman who allegedly posed as a “national advisor at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO)” and duped a Pune-based businessman of Rs 50 lakh.
Gorakh Maral, 49, who is into the business of supplying building materials, lodged a complaint against the woman identified as Kashmira Sandip Pawar, 29, whom he acquainted a few years ago, at the Bundgarden police station on Monday.
Kashmira and her accomplice Ganesh Gaikwad, 32, both residents of the Satara district, have been booked under sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
The police said Kashmira, claiming to be a national advisor at PMO, assured Maral she would help him win a tender for government work using her “contacts in the government”. She also allegedly shared some bogus tender documents with Maral over WhatsApp to win his confidence.
According to Maral, Kashmira allegedly took Rs 50 lakh, some in cash and remaining online, from him between December 2019 and March 2022, but did not help him win the bid for any government work.
Maral said, “A few years ago, there were news reports about Kashmira being appointed as a national adviser at the PMO. Based on this, we trusted her, only to later discover that she was deceiving people. When I attempted to recover my funds, I was falsely implicated in an extortion case.”
Maral said Gaikwad claimed to be Kashmira’s spouse and pretended to be a high-profile person.
Sub inspector Ravindra Gawade of the Bundharden police station, who is investigating the case, said, “A probe is on. We are investigating the documents allegedly used to cheat the complainant. An offence of cheating and forgery was lodged against the accused woman even in 2023 in Satara,” said Gawade.
In December 2017, the media reported the “appointment” of a young woman from Maharashtra’s Satara district as “national advisor to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO)” who spoke “directly with Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.
The reports also claimed Kashmira Sandip Pawar communicated with National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval via videoconferencing from the Satara District Collector’s office, besides talking to other top PMO bureaucrats.
On Wednesday, Kashmira and her accomplice Ganesh Gaikwad, 32, were arrested by Satara police in connection with a first information report (FIR) registered last year on charges of cheating, forgery and impersonation under relevant Sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). A court in Satara has remanded the duo to police custody for two days.
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