Mumbai: Investigations against alleged cult leader Sunil Kulkarni have indicated that he had forged a cheque and a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a Bhopal-based businessman in the name of one of the two girls whose parents went to court against him. The girl has told the police that this was done without her consent, and that she did not even know about it.
Kulkarni, who propagated a cult named Shifu Sunkriti, was arrested on April 20 after the Bombay High Court instructed the Mumbai Police Crime Branch to initiate investigations against him. The police had last week recorded statements from the two sisters who, allegedly due to his influence, left their parents’ house and went to stay with him.
Crime Branch sources said the investigating team, during a search of Kulkarni’s residence, had recovered an MoU with an ice-cream company from Bhopal regarding a business transaction, ostensibly signed between the owner of the company and the elder of the two sisters.
“When the MoU was shown to the girl last week, she told us she had never gone to Bhopal or met the businessman, nor had she signed any such MoU with anyone. We also found the girl’s chequebook, with several cheques missing and some signed cheques, in Kulkarni’s house. One of the cheques was made out to a Mumbai-based company for ₹15 lakh and bore the girl’s signature. However, the girl told us that she had never signed the cheque, and that the signature on the cheque was different from her sign,” said a Crime Branch officer.
The girl, in her statement, has said that she had willingly given her chequebook and debit card to Kulkarni, as he claimed he needed a bank account to carry out transactions of his “event management company”.
“There have been some transactions from the girl’s account over the last few months, and Kulkarni kept telling her that they were connected to the company’s affairs. We have added the section of forgery under the Indian Penal Code against Kulkarni and are conducting further inquiries,” the officer said.
Kulkarni was produced in court on Wednesday and remanded in judicial custody.
