Kiran Gosavi lands in Pune police custody in 2018 cheating case

PUNE: The city police early on Thursday morning arrested Kiran Gosavi, who recently hit the headlines by surfacing as the Narcotics Control Bureau’s (NCB) independent witness in the cruise drug bust case involving Aryan Khan, in an alleged Rs3.09 lakh cheating case lodged in 2018.

The cheating case was registered by the Faraskhana police in the city. Gosavi evaded the Pune police for more than three years. Pune police commissioner
Amitabh Gupta told TOI, “A Pune crime branch team took Gosavi into custody around 3am from a lodge at Mangdewadi near Katraj. He was using an alias, ‘Sachin Patil’, to continuously travel on long-distance trains from one place to another, including Lucknow and Fatehpur Sikri, besides his native place Jalgaon, Hyderabad, Navi Mumbai and Mumbai. He reached Pune on Wednesday evening.”
Gupta said, “The 2018 case apart, we will register a fresh FIR relating to complainant Chinmay Deshmukh’s claim that Gosavi had then threatened and abused him for withdrawal of the case. The police could not register this case against Gosavi then. Gosavi is also suspected to have cheated other young job aspirants in Pune. We issued an appeal to them to come forward and lodge their complaints.”
He said, “We will also investigate Gosavi’s financial transactions through an export-import business and an NGO,’Stop Crime’, which he claims to operate from Ghatkopar.”
Judicial magistrate first class R K Bafna-Bhalgat on Thursday ordered Kiran Gosavi’s remand in police custody till November 5. On court’s permission, Faraskhana police inspector Shabbir Sayyed submitted that a non-bailable warrant had been issued against Gosavi on March 29, 2019 and a local court proclaimed the latter as an absconder on April 5, 2019. The police had subsequently filed a chargesheet against Gosavi, and his aide, Shaerbanu Mohammed Irfan Qureshi, on April 25, 2019.
Assistant public prosecutor Varsha Alekar argued that the police had added charges relating to forgery under sections 465 and 468 of the Indian Penal Code against Gosavi and sought sufficient time for police to investigate the case. Gosavi’s lawyer, Sachin Kumbhar, pleaded for a magisterial custody, arguing that the FIRs against his client at various places had nothing to do with the instant crime.
Gosavi had gone into hiding again after his selfie with Aryan Khan went viral on social media soon after the October 2 cruise drug bust. The police had since renewed their effort to trace and arrest him and also issued a lookout notice for him on October 13.
A couple of days ago, the police sent a team to Lucknow in search of him after he had surfaced in a video clip on social media to present his “version” of why he had to go into hiding. On Wednesday, a senior NCB official had appealed to Gosavi through the media to surrender before the Pune police. Following this, there were reports about Gosavi having set out for Pune to surrender himself. But this did not happen.
DCP (Crime) Shrinivas Ghadge, assistant commissioner Laxman Borate, inspector Vinayak Vetal and assistant inspector Sandeep Buwa were tracking of Gosavi’s movement. “He would switch off his phone once getting into a train and would activate only for limited use,” an officer said.
Gosavi is also facing three cheating cases — two at Kapurbawdi in Thane and one at Andheri in Mumbai. ACP (Crime) Ramnath Pokale said, “Gosavi is married. He used to stay in Thane but later shifted to Vashi in Navi Mumbai.”
Complainant Chinmay Deshmukh, who now runs a catering business in the city, told TOI, “Gosavi had abused me on phone and threatened dire consequences in 2018. However, the police did not register a complaint at that time. I will lodge a fresh complaint after discussing it with legal experts and police authorities”.
Deshmukh, a resident of Kasba Peth, registered the case on May 29, 2018, stating that he had approached Gosavi’s firm — KPG Dreamz Solutions — at Ghatkopar in Mumbai after coming across an online advertisement claiming that the company provides jobs to young persons in the hotel industry in Malaysia.
The company officials told him to send his biodata, collected Rs3.09 lakh towards air ticket fares, his passport and allied details as part of the deal. However, Deshmukh found himself in the lurch at the Mumbai airport on the day he was to fly to Malaysia. The company officials did not respond to his call. 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 CrPC which refers to the record of proof in the accused’s absence. On October 18, the police arrested Gosavi’s aide, Shaerbano Mohammed Irfan Qureshi (27) of Govandi in Mumbai.
The Pune police on Thursday invoked sections 465 and 468 of IPC against Gosavi in the FIR registered with the Faraskhana police after finding that he got the SIM card with forged documents.