PUNE: A city police team on Monday night reached Lucknow in search of Kiran Gosavi, wanted in a Rs3.09 lakh cheating case registered in 2018 by the Faraskhana police, but he had left the Uttar Pradesh capital by then.
He was suspected to be hiding somewhere in Fatehpur Sikri in Uttar Pradesh, the police said on Tuesday.
Gosavi remained elusive for more than three years and surfaced recently as the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB)’s “independent witness” in the cruise drug case involving Aryan Khan. He hit the headlines by posting a selfie with Aryan, allegedly at the NCB’s office, after the later and others were brought there following the cruise raid.
Gosavi went into hiding after state minister Nawab Malik said in a news conference that the former was wanted in a criminal case in Pune. The city police have since renewed their effort to nab Gosavi and even issued a lookout notice for him on October 13.
On Monday, Gosavi resurfaced on a social media platform, claiming that he had to go into hiding because he was getting death threats. The Pune police swung into action and concluded after examining the video clip that he was in hiding in Uttar Pradesh. “Our team is following his movements in Uttar Pradesh,” said Amitabh Gupta, the commissioner of police (CP), Pune.
Chinmay Deshmukh, a young job seeker from Kasba Peth, had registered the case on May 29, 2018, stating that Thane resident Gosavi was then running a firm -- KPG Dreamz Solutions -- at Ghatkopar in Mumbai. Deshmukh stated that he had come across an online advertisement on a social networking site stating that the company provided jobs to young talented persons in the hotel industry in Malaysia. He then contacted the company.
The company officials told him to send his biodata and later took his passport and other details. They asked him to deposit fees of Rs3.09 lakh, including the air ticket charges.
Deshmukh deposited the money and the company asked him to come to Mumbai airport for flying out to Malaysia, but no one turned up at the airport. He tried to call the company officials, but no one responded. Deshmukh then realised that he was cheated.
After futile searches in Thane and Mumbai, the Faraskhana police in August 2018 filed a chargesheet against Gosavi in the court under Section 299 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which refers to the record of evidence in absence of the accused.
On October 18, police had arrested Gosavi’s aide Shaerbano Mohammed Irfan Qureshi (27) of Govandi in Mumbai in the cheating case. It is the police’s case that Qureshi had uploaded material on various social networking sites related to Gosavi’s venture in 2018 of providing jobs to youngsters in hotel industry in Malaysia. She also accepted money in her account, the police said.
