This incident can be a caution to all the non-locaities in Namma Bengaluru. Recently, a young woman who hails from Mauritius found herself in a helpless situation when she realised that the flat owner who took a huge sum as an advance refused to pay back the money and allegedly threatened her. Not knowing what to do, she approached senior police officers at the police commissioner’s office, who helped her sort out the issue.
Preethi (name changed on the request) wanted to have a peaceful exit from the country after she was offered a prime posting at a private company in Mauritius. After finishing all her joining formalities in the company, she returned to the city to her rented flat in Langford Town. But to her shock and surprise, she found another family staying in her rented flat and all her valuables in the house gone. She approached the police with the complaint of trespassing against her house owner.
Preethi was an analytics manager at a reputed MNC in Bengaluru and was working since November 2011. “I had rented an apartment from S. Kumar in Langford Town. As per the lease agreement, I transferred Rs 4.8 lakh to his bank account which included the deposit and six months’ rent in advance. I occupied the flat on November 26, 2011. In February 2012, I told the owner that I would vacate the place as I had an offer from a Mauritius company,” she said.
“Mr Kumar assured me that he will transfer the advance amount to my account. I was out of station from February 12 and flew to Mauritius on March 27.”she said “I returned to the city along with my mother and a maid. When I tried to open the doors of my rented flat, I could not. A woman with her two children opened the door and told us that they had taken the flat on rent. I called up the broker, Syed, who had got me the house, and asked him to talk to the house owner. We all went to Kumar’s apartment, but a little girl, who attended the door, told us that he was out of station. We were not convinced and came a little distance away from the apartment and lay in wait. After a few minutes, Kumar came out and we confronted him. But he was in no mood to listen and pushed Syed aside and walked away. He had given my flat on rent to someone else in my absence and my sofa set, TV, dining table, refrigerator and microwave had gone missing,” she said.
She then approached officers at the police commissioner’s office and complained to them. One of the senior officers directed the jurisdictional Ashoknagar police to investigate the case. “Once the police came into the picture, Kumar returned my money. The police extended help and saved me from getting cheated,” she said.