Defrauded Pune techie dies by suicide

The incident comes nearly five months after Selva Nadar closed his office in Nucleus Mall of Pune after defrauding over 200 ‘profile investors’ to the tune of Rs 300 crore through his ‘loan investment scheme’.

Police said Prabhat had borrowed Rs 88 lakh from six different banks and invested the amount in Selva Nadar’s Ashtavinayak investment in June 2021. He owed banks Rs 1.82 lakh a month in EMIs and had lost his job in December last year.

According to police, besides the cheating he faced in the hands of Selva Nadar, Prabhat was also duped of Rs 15 lakh by one of his relatives, identified as Sachin Kumar. Police said Kumar swindled the amount from Prabhat between July 2021 and March 2023 by claiming to be investing it in a business and providing forged bills and cheques to Prabhat as proof.

Earlier this month, a friend of Prabhat, identified as Ajinkya Lokhande, bought a Mercedes car Prabhat owned for Rs 7.50 lakh but paid him only Rs 3 lakh, said police. Police have booked Nadar, former manager at Ashtavinayak Prasad Shinde, Sachin Kumar, and Ajinkya Lokhande under sections 34 (common intention) and 306 (abetment of suicide) of the IPC. Prabhat’s elder brother Rajeev, who registered a case of abetment of suicide with Chandangar Police, said he jumped to his death at the Yin Yang Society around 3.45am on Thursday.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Prabhat’s wife Neha Gupta, who is also an IT professional, said, “For the last few months, Prabhat was extremely troubled due to the Ashtavinayak scam. He was receiving a number of bank recovery calls, legal notices and personal visits. He always tried to handle those on his own so as to protect us from harassment. Later, he was cheated by his cousin Sachin Kumar and his friend Ajinkya Lokhande, which made matters worse. It’s important that victims of the Ashtavinayak scam get help from authorities. I urge others to take care and not to take any extreme step.”

Rajeev, who stays in Ranchi, said, “Prabhat was feeling depressed because of the series of cheatings… He called me on July 12 and told me that he was afraid. I had told him that I will come down to Pune to be with him. However, on July 13 morning, I received a call from his friend with the terrible news.”

A manager at the Ying Yang Society said a staff member, who had gone to switch on the water pump around 4am on Thursday, noticed Prabhat’s body lying on the ground. “He called me to tell me that ‘someone was sleeping’ there. It was an area difficult to approach. After finding out what had happened, our seniors called the police,” said the manager.

Assistant police inspector Siddhant Khandekar, who is investigating the case, said Prabhat consumed an insecticide before jumping from the residential building. “We found some empty bottles of the insecticide in his apartment. We also saw in a CCTV camera that he stepped out of the apartment at 2.49am. He seems to have gone to the terrace and then jumped,” said the police officer.

Prabhat was one of the over 200 people who were allegedly cheated by Selva Nadar’s Ashtavinayak Investment’s ‘profile investor’ scheme, which is now subject of an investigation by Pune Police’s Economic Offences Wing.

According to police, Nadar and his clients approached high-salaried individuals with a good credit record with the ‘profile investor’ scheme. As part of the scheme, the firm applied for personal loans in multiple banks in the investor’s name with their consent and got disbursal from several banks at the same time. The amount was then invested in Nadar’s company with a promise of high return on investment and responsibility of payment of EMIs on time. The loan amount disbursed was much higher than the loan eligibility of the client and his repayment capacity.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Appasaheb Shewale (EOW) told The Indian Express that the investigation in the case was underway. “We are trying to trace the main accused Nadar. We have been contacting the banks and collecting information about the fraud. This is a complex financial crime and hence, the investigation is taking some time,” he said.