At least four people have approached the police, accusing a former editor with Star India network of cheating them of large amounts of money. The accused, Sabyasachi Ray, now an independent filmmaker, has alleged that they had threatened him, and has filed a complaint against them with the Amboli police.
According to the police, the complainants — Vipul Roy, Shilpa Iyer, Vikram Sinha and Punit Pandey — submitted an application to the Versova police on Thursday, stating that Mr. Ray had borrowed ₹7 lakh, ₹50,000, ₹1.5 lakh and ₹50,000 respectively from them. The cheques he gave them were dishonoured, and he never returned the money, they said.
Mr. Roy said, “On October 1, 2017, Mr. Ray approached me saying that his daughter had met with an accident in New York and borrowed ₹7 lakh from me. I later learned that he does not even have a daughter. He issued a cheque of ₹7 lakh on November 17. I waited till the penultimate date to deposit the cheque, which bounced and I filed a court case against him.”
Mr. Ray, however, has said he never spoke of any daughter and was given ₹3 lakh for a documentary film. “I do not deny borrowing the money, but there was no case of cheating. Since the case is sub judice, I will not comment further,” he said.
Mr. Roy wrote a post on Facebook warning people about Mr. Ray, and received several responses from people claiming to have been similarly cheated.
Senior police inspector Ravindra Badgujar, Versova police station, confirmed that they have received an application against Mr. Ray, and said the matter was being looked into.
Subsequently, Mr. Ray filed a non-cognisable offence with the Amboli police on Thursday afternoon for being threatened and abused on social media by Mr. Roy and Pinky Punawala, a Mumbai resident who claims to have been cheated by him.
The same night, he filed a separate FIR against Mr. Roy, Ms. Punawala, Ms. Iyer and Saurabh Joshi, a friend of the others, alleging that they had assaulted him in his Andheri residence.
Mr. Roy said, “We were advised to record the meeting and initially, Mr. Ray was behaving in a cordial manner. When we turned off the camera, matters escalated. His wife, Jayanti, came with a knife and said the law would deem it a case of self-defence if she were to attack us. Mr. Ray also assaulted us.”
Mr. Ray, on the other hand, claimed, “They arrived at my house and broke open the door, which is a clear case of trespassing. My wife did take out a knife, but to cut her own vein because she was tired of being harassed.” Mr. Roy denies that they broke open the door.
Senior police inspector Bharat Gaikwad, Amboli police station, said Mr. Ray had abrasions on his arm, based on which they registered the complaint. “We have asked Mr Roy and the others to submit their medical reports so we can take action on their allegations as well.”
