Bhubaneswar: A 28-year-old man, who allegedly cheated over 150 young women by posing as a doctor, was nabbed from Saheed Nagar in Odisha capital by Twin City Commissionerate Police on Monday.
A resident of Badamba area in Cuttack district, Pravash Das used to trap girls on social media platforms and matrimonial websites by identifying himself as a student of MKCG Medical College and Hospital, Berhampur, and then loot them of their belongings on their first meeting, police sources said.
He, however, has studied only till Class VI.
According to a complaint lodged by one of the victims, who had met him on Facebook, Pravash invited her to Esplanade One mall in the city and took her to a garment shop on the pretext of gifting her a dress. When she selected the dress and went to the trial room, he decamped with her purse and mobile phone.
Unable to trace him at the shop, she called him from the mobile phone of an employee of the shop but found it to be switched off.
Police sources further said that he would also take girls on lunch and dinner to good restaurants and then dupe them in a similar fashion when they went to the washroom.
Four costly mobile phones have been seized from his possession.
The probe further revealed that several cases are pending against him in different police stations in Cuttack and Jagatsinghpur districts and arrested twice earlier.
Pravash has two Facebook accounts under the name Pravash Raj and Pravash Chandra Das, where he mentions that he resides in Cuttack and went to St Mary’s High School and later studied at MKCG. He has also uploaded several pictures posing as a model.
