Two held for robbing youth in Pune after meeting via LGBTQ dating app

On January 23, this person asked the complainant to meet in the Magarpatta area in the evening. When the two met, the other person asked the complainant to accompany him to Mundhwa on the pretext of ‘delivering a tiffin to aunt.’ However, the suspect took the complainant to a secluded location in Mundhwa where another suspect was already waiting. Around 9 pm, the two suspects assaulted the complainant and robbed the gold chain the complainant was wearing.

Days later, on Monday, the complainant registered an FIR at Mundhwa police station. Based on the analysis of the technical leads including call data records, the police arrested Karan Vishal Lacharkar alias Karry (23) and Manish Baban Nimbalkar (21) on Tuesday afternoon.

Inspector Neelkath Jagtap of Mundhwa police station said, “Multiple incidents have been reported in the past in which people have been robbed, cheated and assaulted by persons they met on various dating applications. Probes suggest that these suspects register on the dating application only for the purpose of targeting people in this manner. In many cases, people are afraid of coming forward with complaints. We are making an appeal to people to exercise caution while using the dating application, especially while meeting people in person. We are also urging people to come forward and report these crimes so that the perpetrators can be caught.”