A retired deputy director of security at the Lok Sabha was defrauded of more than Rs 1 crore under the guise of mutual fund and stock investments, police claimed.
In November 2000, Sector 43 resident BL Ahuja (83) resigned from his position as deputy director (security) in the Lok Sabha.
He was allegedly conned by Abhishek Maheshwari, an employee of Axis Bank, and his wife. Ahuja said in his police report that he had known Maheshwari since 2013, when he was employed by ICICI Bank.
Ahuja was recommended by Maheshwari to invest in mutual funds as opposed to retaining his money in the bank. In 2018, Ahuja gave him two checks totalling Rs 1 crore. He obtained a second payment of Rs 30 lakh in March 2019 to invest in Wipro shares, according to Ahuja.
Maheshwari was repeatedly questioned about the status of the investments by Ahuja’s son, who resides in the US, and allegedly shared phoney paperwork as a result. When his son visited in April 2021 during COVID-19, he began reviewing the financial statements and once more requested Maheshwari’s access to the retail brokerage account and statements, but he was given “false assurances,” according to Ahuja.
The brokerage’s local office was called by Ahuja’s son, who discovered that Maheshwari and his wife, Archana, reportedly operated a sub-brokerage.
In order to force Ahuja to make the complaint, they allegedly gained access to his account by obtaining the OTP (one-time password) from his phone without his knowledge or consent.
According to the police, an FIR was filed at the Sushant Lok police station against the couple under sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using forged documents), 120-B (criminal conspiracy), and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.
“As per the complaint, an FIR has been registered and we are verifying the facts. Action will be taken as per the law,” said Sushant Lok police station SHO Deepak Kumar.