Mumbai: Elderly Woman Duped By Signing Blank Cheque, Accused Arrested

Mumbai, 21st November 2022: Goregaon police arrested a servant who signed a blank cheque and withdrew around Rs 56 lakh from the bank account of an elderly woman. The name of this 27-year-old accused is Nikhil Vidyadhar Achrekar. Complainant Vijayalakshmi Tari (82) lives in the Goregaon area with her husband. As the husband and wife were elderly, they hired Nikhil to do the daily chores, including taking care of them. Nikhil is originally a resident of Ratnagiri and was staying at this house since last year. His relative had sent him for a job.

Vijayalakshmi was getting a pension of Rs 30,000 per month, and she was living on it. Nikhil used to do all the daily household chores, including withdrawing money from the bank for household expenses. Many times, they would give him blank cheques and ask him to withdraw money from the bank. He was withdrawing money and giving it to them. So they had faith in Nikhil. Between October 2021 and October 2022, he withdrew Rs three lakh from the bank. He had the passbooks of both their banks. But after asking about the account taken from the bank, he was avoiding them. On October 25, he left with the passbook of both banks, saying he would bring the money and did not return.

Since he did not return after two days, Tari assumed that he must have gone to the village for Diwali. So when they went to the bank to withdraw money, they took the information from both bank accounts. It was learnt that Nikhil had withdrawn Rs six lakh from their account between October 20, 2021, and October 25 2022. He embezzled this money within a year by overdrawing the blank check given by them. As soon as Vijayalakshmi Tari noticed the fraud, she lodged a complaint with the Goregaon police. After this complaint, the police registered a case of fraud against Nikhil Achrekar. As soon as the case was registered, the police launched a special operation to arrest him.