Navi Mumbai: ‘Godman’ rapes, cheats woman in guise of saving husband from evil spell

The accused took the woman to Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and several places in Maharashtra to perform rituals. Representation Pic

The Vashi police have booked a self-proclaimed godman and six others for raping, blackmailing and cheating a 56-year-old woman of over R78 lakh on the pretext of ‘shower of money', finding hidden treasure and saving her husband from an evil spell. The entire fraud was revealed when the woman suffered a stroke and her daughter and husband found her notebook at home.

According to the complaint filed by the woman's husband, a 62-year-old retired government officer, for the past eight months, he had been travelling back and forth to Ratnagiri to supervise repair work of their village home. While he was in Ratnagiri, on September 24, his daughter called to tell him that the woman suffered a stroke and was paralysed. The man rushed to Navi Mumbai to find his wife in the ICU of a private hospital.

"The man's daughter told him that after the woman was admitted, she found lemon, chillies, and other materials used in rituals at their residence in Sector 10, Vashi. The daughter also found the woman's notebook in which transactions worth lakhs, names of people and their kundalis had been drawn. The daughter realised that her mother was made to perform some rituals by those named in the notebook," said an officer from Vashi police station.

The complainant checked the notebook himself and identified the handwriting as his wife's. The notebook contained a detailed account of each day from February 2023. Seven people, including a guruji named Nilesh Hatwalane, were named in the book. The woman also wrote that she was taken to Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and various locations in Maharashtra to perform rituals. The people named in the book claimed that her husband was under an evil spell and the rituals would save his life.

The supposed guruji, Hatwalane, began various rituals and demanded payments in cash, cheques and gold. The woman's husband discovered that the accused were given money and gold worth Rs 78.65 lakh. They spent all the money and asked the woman for more and also the details of her family's property, which she gave.

Became unwell after ritual: "On September 23, the guruji and one more person went to the woman's house and performed a ritual. They allegedly made her drink and eat something. It made her severely unwell and on September 24, she had to be rushed to the hospital," said an officer from Vashi police. "The woman called her daughter who lives in Panvel. The daughter took her to the hospital where the woman told her about the godman and the incident," the officer added.

The woman narrated her ordeal to her husband and told him that Hatwalane and others conned her. A friend of the woman told the husband that the godman developed physical relations with her on the pretext of sacred rituals, took pictures and videos of the acts, and blackmailed the woman. He took details of the woman's bank accounts and tried to withdraw money. Furthermore, he threatened to kill the woman when he was barred from meeting her at the hospital.

After getting all the information, the husband rushed to Vashi police, who booked the seven accused under Sections 420 (cheating), 34 (common intention), 506 (criminal intimidation) and relevant sections of The Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice, Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act, 2013. The woman gave R36.65 lakh in cash and gold jewellery worth Rs 42 lakh to the accused.

Other accused apart from Hatwalane include his wife Archana Hatwalane, Sagar Jejurkar, Vijay Babel, Nanabhau, Bhakti and Anusaya Kamble. "We have booked the seven people but no arrests have been made yet," said DCP (Zone I) Vivek Pansare.