Music stops for conman who made duped lakhs from students, teachers
By Brendan DabhiBrendan Dabhi, Ahmedabad Mirror | Updated: May 3, 2019, 06:00 IST
The website advertises Kanu Patel as owner of dance academy, (Inset) Kanu Patel
In a real-life enactment of Hollywood movie Catch Me If You Can, a man hunted by multiple police teams across Gujarat was finally caught on April 5 by Kutch police while he was trying to dupe a local dance institute. Conman Kanu Patel, who ran a dance academy in Vadodara, usedto lure teachers, parents and students of dance classes by promising to hold cultural shows at foreign locales like Mauritius.
Complaints against Patel, who cheated at least six dance troupes over a period of three years, keep piling up even after his arrest. His latest con surfaced on April 11 in Ahmedabad after Uma Antani, a resident of Satellite area, filed a complaint that her colleague Shivangi Shah at Ras Dhwani Trust, a dance institute, was cheated of Rs 12.6 lakh in June last year.
Patel had presented himself as a director of Krutagma Productions and said he was hosting an event in Mauritius. He invited students and their parents to participate in the event. Shivangi paid him Rs 12.6 lakh fee, Rs 18,000 per student and Rs 45,000 per parent willing to accompany her ward. Patel disappeared after taking the money. Patel is wanted by police in at least eight cities, including six in Gujarat and two in Rajasthan.
Conman threw his net wide
A case of fraud was filed at Pradyumannagar police station in Rajkot on April 12, 2019, by Jignesh Ramesh Surani, the head of Tandav Nartan Institute of Classical Dance, who was approached by Kanu Patel through a student. Surani has alleged that Patel defrauded parents of students to the tune of Rs 14.67 lakh by luring them with hosting their children at a cultural event in Mauritius on Yoga Day. The Surat police took his charge on April 24 in connection with a case filed there.
Chaita Mehta, a Bharatnatyam dance teacher, had filed a complaint against him for defrauding her and her students of Rs 6.90 lakh after luring them with Mauritius dream. PI KA Gadhvi of Umra police station said, "He seems to have carried out many crimes with the same modus operandi."
In Bhuj, Manoj Solanki, owner of Nupur Dance Academy, filed a complaint that Patel cheated him and his students of Rs 10.23 lakh in November 2018. They were also sold the prospect of performing in Mauritius. Talking to Mirror, Solanki said, "Kanu Patel should not be allowed to go free because he continues with his modus operandi after getting out. The crimes he commits are bailable but in his case stringent action is necessary."
He further said, "Patel took me and my wife to Mauritius and paid for the trip. He has accomplices there who showed us the venue where my students would perform. He convinced team leaders and then cheated them on return to India." The oldest case filed against Kanu Patel dates back to December 2016. Dr Nitinkumar Sharma, Principal of Jalaram School in Godhra, filed a case of fraud against Kanu Patel for taking Rs 14.40 lakh from 29 parents. In this case too he had assured to hold a dance programme in Mauritius.
In Rajasthan, it was NASA, Yoga
Sanjay Puranmal Parashar of Advent Edge Education Foundation in Udaipur, Rajasthan, filed a case against Patel on May 7, 2018, for posing as a professor of MSU Baroda and defrauding students and their parents of Rs 11.03 lakh by luring them with a trip to NASA through an NGO he claimed was run by former US first lady Michelle Obama. The fraud came to light after the complainant called the US Consulate only to be told that no application for visas had been made. More cases are likely to be filed against him as people come forward."
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