26-yr-old man arrested for raping 15 women he met on matrimonial sites | Mumbai news

MUMBAI: The Waliv police in Vasai East on Wednesday arrested a 26-year-old man from Gujarat for raping more than 15 women he met on matrimonial websites in the past two and a half years, with the false assurance of marriage. The police said Himanshu Yogeshbhai Panchal, a resident of Ahmedabad, had created a fake profile on the sites, posing as a Delhi crime branch officer attached to the cyber security division, to lure the women.

Panchal’s fake profile also mentioned that he was from a rich family and was the owner of many properties. After contacting the young women, he would invite them to hotels in Vasai, Mumbai and Ahmedabad, where he would promise marriage, gift them fake diamond jewellery, and force them to establish physical relations with him on the first meeting itself. Later, he would also extort money from them on the pretext of some urgency and eventually stop contacting them after exploiting them sexually and financially.

The conman’s luck ran out when a 31-year-old woman from Mira Road approached the Waliv police on February 6, claiming that Panchal had raped her after contacting her on a matrimonial website and gaining her trust by gifting her a diamond necklace that turned out to be fake. She named two hotels in Vasai and Ahmedabad where he allegedly raped her.

Assistant police Inspector Sachin Sanap of Waliv police station said that Panchal was a sweet talker who impressed women with his good English. “He had five phones and an Apple laptop and always used hotels’ WiFi and WhatsApp for calls. We arrested him from Ahmedabad after technical investigation,” he said.