Mumbai: A 33-year-old man who had abandoned his wife and son three years ago was arrested on Saturday and booked for subjecting his wife to cruelty and criminal breach of trust. The accused, Naresh Lalwani, was arrested from Andheri, three years after he was accused of using cash and valuables belonging to his wife to clear his personal loans.
According to the police, Lalwani posed as the branch manager of a south Mumbai-based private bank while approaching the victim for marriage through a matrimonial website in 2013. Lalwani had claimed he owned a lavish duplex flat on Carter Road valued at Rs 4.75 crore but was embroiled in a legal battle.
The girl fell for his ploy and married Lalwani in 2014. Lalwani had also demanded a hefty dowry from the victim’s family — cash, jewellery and a car. However, two years later, things turned sour, when Lalwani refused to take his wife to the Carter Road duplex flat and would not give her access to the jewellery given by her parents.
One day, when Lalwani’s wife checked the documents, she found her jewellery was mortgaged to repay a hefty loan. When she questioned her husband, she was shocked to learn that Lalwani was not a manager at any private bank and had only married her to clear his bank loans. She confronted him and after a spat, Lalwani abandoned the family, never to return.
The victim had registered a complaint in 2016 and all these years, Naresh was missing. On Saturday, one of the informers alerted the police that Naresh had been spotted at Andheri. Following his arrest, it was revealed that Naresh had been previously arrested by Sahar Police for cheating a company and after serving a jail term, he joined a security agency at Andheri,” said Shailesh Pasalwad, a senior police inspector of Oshiwara police station.
Along with Lalwani, his parents too have been booked under relevant sections of the IPC. Currently, Naresh is out on bail and the matter is being probed,” said an officer.
