Over the last four years, Ramesh Kumar Swain, 66, married 27 women from ten different States under false pretexts. 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. How the diminutive 5-ft-2-inch-tall man, educated only up to Class X but posing as a doctor, managed to deceive so many women without raising suspicion is part of an unravelling mystery. Bhubaneswar Police had to set up a task force to reach out to all his victims. So far, the police have contacted 90 women tricked by Swain.
Lid blown
In May 2021, the Commissionerate Police for Bhubaneswar and Cuttack received a call from a 48-year-old New Delhi-based school teacher, who wanted to lodge a complaint against her husband as he had entered into multiple marriages with other women and swindled her of ₹13 lakh. Subsequently, a case was registered at a women’s police station on the direction of Deputy Commissioner of Police Umashankar Dash.
