KOLKATA: The Survey Park police around 5.30pm on Sunday arrested a 38-year-old grocer from Habra who allegedly used to pose as a businessman and dupe divorced women in the city. The police said that the accused — Arindam Bhowmik alias Susanta Sarkar alias Rony — has duped eight women on two matrimonial sites since January this year and 10 in 2018.“The accused would contact only divorcees with a small fortune. He would then offer to take them to restaurants in central and south suburban Kolkata and then fix a date for wedding. After a few weeks, he would approach the victim for a “small financial help”. He would take Rs 30,000-Rs 1,00,000 from them to “help in his business”. Once he received the money, he would sever all contacts with the victim,”an officer explained.Police seized a cellphone from the accused. “We found objectionable content in the cellphone, including videos of women who were recorded illegally without their consent. We are ascertaining if we can slap charges against him based on the IT Act,” an investigating officer said.The accused was arrested after a woman from Santoshpur lodged an FIR with the Survey Park police on March 23. “The complainant had registered on a Bengali matrimonial website and uploaded her photo in June 2018. In October, she received WhatsApp messages from the accused who introduced himself as Arindam Bhowmik,” he said.DC (East) Sudheer Kumar Neelakantam said, “Soon, he began regular conversations with the victim and met her thrice in different restaurants of the city. After gaining her trust, Bhowmick asked her for money. Convinced with his behaviour, the woman gave him a bearer cheque of Rs 40,000. However, soon after this, the accused stopped responding to her calls and blocked her number. Realizing that she had been duped, she lodged the complaint with us.”The cops then laid a trap and the accused Bhowmick was arrested near a mall on EM Bypass. “We want the other victims to come forward. We have come across several women whom he had contacted in the recent past,” the investigating officer said.

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