Sunil Kulkarni, founder of Shifu Sunkriti, was produced at Esplanade court on Thursday and remanded in police custody. (Express Photo/Prashant Nadkar)
The Mumbai Police Crime Branch is set to file a chargesheet against Sunil Kulkarni, “bogus doctor” and founder of group Shifu Sunkriti, by the next week. A senior crime branch officer said, “The chargesheet is almost ready. We are at the final stage. We are hopeful of filing it in the next few days or by the next week. Primarily, Kulkarni will be charged with cheating, forgery and impersonation. We will also book him under sections of the Information Technology Act for possessing obscene content. With regards to allegations of sexual assault, nothing to that effect was mentioned in the statements given by the two women.”
The women are the daughters of the Malad couple who had approached the High Court against Shifu Sunkriti, leading to an FIR being registered in the case.
The officer said, “While the parents of the women had made several allegations, the sisters’ statements does not corroborate them. We have primarily charged Kulkarni for cheating, forgery and impersonation based on the evidence we have found. His claims of being a psychiatrist are fake too.”
During a search carried out at Kulkarni’s residence, the police had found he had entered into a contract with a Bhopal-based firm in the name of one of the sisters without her knowledge. The police found he had forged the signature of the woman, an officer said.
In their plea before the High Court, the Malad couple had termed Shifu Sunkriti “a sex and drugs racket” and alleged that Kulkarni had lured their daughters and influenced them negatively. They had claimed that it was due to Kulkarni that the women had moved out of their house.
The Mumbai crime branch was asked to investigate the matter, and it registered an FIR on April 18 under sections 328 (causing hurt by means of poison), 370 (trafficking), 292 (sale of obscene books) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code, along with sections of the Information Technology Act related to obscenity.
Kulkarni’s Bandra house was later raided, and police claimed to have found several CDs and a pen drive with obscene content in them.