When two brothers promised 60 women apartments on Madh Island, they conned them out of ₹2.40 crore, according to Malwani police. Police are looking for accused individuals who have fled.

Mumbai: Two brothers have been detained by the Malwani police on charges of defrauding sixty ladies from a women’s organization in Malad West out of ₹2.40 crore by falsely offering them apartments on Madh Island. 

The police are searching for the defendants, who have been named as Avinash Devran Bhanji and his brother Pramod Devram Bhanji.

Sadhana Shivaji Bhandara, 46, the leader of the women’s organization, and fifty-nine other women who had each spent four lakh for the flats that the pair had promised went to the police.

It was around eight years ago when Bhandara’s niece first introduced her to the developers. The two defendants reportedly informed Bhandara that they were developing a project that would include more than 100 residences on a block of land they owned near Gate 3 of Shivaji Nagar on Madh Island.

Bhandara gave the two her faith and presented them to the women’s group members who expressed interest in the proposal.

After signing an agreement, the accused has taken four lakh from each woman over the past two years. “The contract that two signed, guaranteeing them an apartment, is also fraudulent,” a police official from the Malwani police station declared.

Bhandara and the other payers observed that the dwellings’ construction had not started even after two years of the agreement, so they went to the accused. They claim the accused has neither given them their promised apartments nor returned their money.

Sections 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery with the intent to deceive), 471 (documents used for forgery), and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code have all been invoked in the case against the two defendants.

The police opened an investigation after reviewing the accounts of sixty women. But the pair left before they could take them into custody. The policeman stated, “The accused have been declared absconding, and we are making efforts to trace them.”