BENGALURU: Sixty-five-year-old popular Kannada movie and tele-serial actor-cum-director P Ravikiran has been conned of more than Rs 4 lakh by a couple and their associates. The actor-director alleged that he fell to the bait of being invited as the chief guest at an event in Dubai with all-paid travel and stay, for which he ended up transferring over four lahks to the accounts of the accused for air tickets, foreign currency exchange, purchasing gold for cheaper price and hotel room booking. He was also allegedly told that the “organisers” would pay him for being chief guest in the Dubai event.
The accused have allegedly even conned him into paying money for registration and other charges related to a plot near the Bengaluru International Airport that they also baited him with.
It was only after paying up these amounts and on realising that the accused started avoiding him, that Ravikiran filed a complaint with KS Layout police station. Ravikiran, a resident of Teachers Colony in KS Layout, filed the complaint on Wednesday, against Naveen Bhagyashree Guruji, Chaitra and others. Guruji is the accused number 1 in the case, while Chaitra is the accused number 2.
In the complaint copy, he said he came to know the accused two years ago through common friends and they have been in touch ever since.
On October 29, Guruji took donations from Ravikiran for an orphanage he runs. In November, the accused approached the victim asking him to go as “chief guest” for an event in Dubai and convinced him that the organisers would pay him. For the flight tickets, visa processing fees, foreign currency exchange along the charges for the site registration, Ravikiran ended up losing more than Rs 4 lakh to the accused, the actor alleged in his complaint. The accused allegedly even sent men to the actor’s house to collect money.
Ravikiran furnished the details of the monetary transactions made to the accused, which he said took place between October 29 and November 18.
“The accused are yet to be called for questioning. Only the FIR has been registered. We want to go through the documents for claims made by the complainant about the cheating. If the suspects are found guilty, action will be taken against them,” said an officer who is part of the investigations. A case of criminal breach of trust (IPC 406) and cheating (IPC 420) has been registered against the accused.