CHENNAI: The city police arrested a young woman and her husband for cheating a youth of `seven lakh on the promise of arranging his marriage with a girl.
According to police, Ibrahim (30), a decorator, and his wife Yasmin (26) resided at Royapettah. Her friend T Dayanithi, a small trader in Triplicane, asked her help in finding a suitable bride for him. Yasmin told him she knew a 24-year-old who had been looking for a good groom.
“Yasmin told Dayanithi that the girl, Priya, was from a very poor family, and spoke him into giving her `1 lakh. Then she said Priya’s mother was ill and convinced him to give `3 lakh more for medical check-up. All this she managed without even showing Dayanidhi how Priya looked like,” said a local police official.
But soon, Dayanithi insisted on seeing Priya personally, and finally asked Yasmin to return the `4 lakh that she had collected in Priya’s name.
“Under pressure, Yasmin hit upon an idea. She enabled WhatsApp in her mother-in-law’s mobile phone, and put her friend Revathi’s photograph as the profile picture. Then, pretending to be Priya, she began chatting with Dayanithi over WhatsApp while in person she collected `3 more lakh from him, claiming it was for Priya to clear her debts,” the official added. However, the game did not last long as Dayanithi got angry that he was not even able to catch a glimpse of the girl. He then sought the whole amount back.
According to police, Ibrahim and Yasmin attended a function at Revathi’s house in February, from where they stole the latter’s cheque book. Yasmin allegedly signed a cheque in the name of Priya for `7 seven lakh in favour of Dayanithi. By this time, however, he had woken up to the fraud and began enquiring about the girl whom he knew as Priya. He finally found some woman who, he thought, was Priya. But she said her name was Swathi – a name under which Revathi was known in the neighbourhood.
When Dayanithi asked Yasmin about the name, she gave another cheque for the same amount, this time signed in the name of Swathi. Convinced that he was being conned, Dayanithi went to the bank and found out that the account number and name did not match. He then went to Revathi’s house and informed her about the whole episode, including the number through which he used to communicate with ‘Priya’ who had her profile picture. Revathi lodged a complaint with the Royapettah police, and Yasmin and Ibrahim were arrested and remanded in custody on Friday.