News & Pics: Rons Bantwal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai (SB/VA)
Mumbai, Mar 26: In this fast-paced world as much as people are turning materialistic, the need for peace through spiritual bliss and blind beliefs too has seen an increase. The trend and this naievity of people has provided the right fodder for opportunists to pose as Godmen or mediator to God in order to make some easy big money.
An incident of duping people of their money in the name of religion has been reported from here. The fraudulent duo who have fled with crores of rupees have been identified as Saldanha couple, basically from Ammembal, Sajipa, Bantwal of Dakshina Kannada district. They preached the devotional phrase, Praise the Lord and in turn also sowed the seeds of greed for money amongst thousands of gullible devotees under the company name, V-care Group of Companies. It can be recollected that Saldanha through his company had also announced first-ever Pan India Transgender taleny Contest named V-Care Indian SuperQueen at Taj President Hotel in Mumbaio Jan 11, 2010 in the presence of actress Celina jaitely, transgender Lakshminarayan Tripathi and actress of Bandit Queen fame Seema Biswas.
Saldanha with celebrities
The case of coning came to light though a bit late when Lancy D'Souza Jerimeri of Andheri East lodged a complaint at Naupada police station, Thane of being cheated by V-care Group of Companies managing director Sunil Saldanha and his wife. After registration the case through FIR, the police raided the company office and took into custody, directors Balraj Mallik (32), Anju Pandey (25) and Deepali Patil (26). Further, Lancy D'Souza has alleged in the complaint that the Saldanha couple are absconding.
It is said that Saldanha has cheated as many as 45,000 devotees stating that he is a devout as well as an entrepreneur, emotionally blackmailing them to invest in his business. Apart from this, he also has assured the investors of providing them flats and a travel to Israel among other inducements. Among those who were influenced by his conniving words were people from Mangalore, Pune, Bangalore as well as Dubai, Lancy D'Souza has alleged in his complaint.
Police have registered a case under section 406, 420, 34 and are looking for the culprits.