Bhubaneswar | Jagran News Desk: A 66-year-old man has married as many as 27 women from ten different States and duped them all, the police said. The man identified as Ramesh Kumar Swain has been arrested by the Odisha police while he was travelling in a car in Bhubaneswar.
Swain is one of Odisha’s biggest imposters who married middle-aged, educated, and well-to-do women of various states only to dupe them later. Among his brides were a Supreme Court lawyer, an officer of the Kerala Administrative Service, a Chartered Accountant, an officer in a paramilitary force, a senior executive from an insurance company, and doctors.
The 5 feet 2 inches tall man who is educated only up to Class X, is also alleged of defrauding 13 banks in Kerala of Rs 1 crore through 128 forged credit cards, cheating people in Hyderabad of Rs 2 crore, and promising seats in MBBS courses for their children.
The police said the accused, approached women under the fake identity of a doctor to deceive several of them. Bhubaneswar Police has set up a task force to reach out to all his victims which so far, have amounted to over 90 women tricked by him.
The sexagenarian Ramesh Chandra Swain, acquired different names like Dr Bibhu Prakash Swain and Dr Ramani Ranjan Swain, to cheat people. He targeted his victims through matrimonial sites like Jeevansathi.com, Shaadi.com and Bharatmatrimony.com. Swain is from a coastal village in Odisha's Kendrapara district.
He was arrested after 38 years after a police complaint was lodged by one of his wives from Delhi whom he married in 2020. The arrest was made under sections 498 (A), 419, 468, 471 and 494 of the Indian Penal Code,.
Swain got married for the first time in 1982, and the last in 2020. His last marriage to a teacher was solemnised at an Arya Samaj temple in Delhi.
He, however, rejected the accusations. "I have not married all these women and I am indeed a doctor," Swain asserted while being escorted to the court.
(With inputs from PTI)