Woman 'caretaker' sends retired IIT professor to old age home; usurps his flats, assets of Rs 6 cr

Mumbai: The Mumbai police have registered a case against a woman for allegedly duping an 82-year old retired IIT professor by acting as his caretaker and getting his properties, including his three flats, transferred to her name after sending him to an old age home, officials said.

The total value of the properties and other assets was Rs 6 crore, they said.

"The incident came to light when the retired Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) professor's son, who stays in Pimpri area near Pune city came to Mumbai last month to meet his father, but found that the latter was not at home," an official of the Powai police station said.

"As he came to know that his father was sent to an old age home in Vikhroli by the caretaker woman in February 2025, the son went to the facility and met him. After coming to know the sequence of events, he took his father back to his Powai flat and approached the police," he said.

Based on the complaint filed by the retired professor, a case of cheating and fraud under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) was registered against the caretaker woman Nikita Naik on June 8, he said.

The fraud involving more than Rs 6 crore, occurred between January 2017 and May 7 this year. The retired professor used to stay alone in the flat located in Glen Heights Apartment at Hirandani Garden in Powai, he said.

He got acquainted with Naik in 2017, when he used to visit the garden to practise yoga. The woman then started coming to the retired professor's flat frequently and after taking him into confidence, started living at the flat as his caretaker to assist him in his daily routines, the police said.

After a couple of years, as the victim's eyesight weakened, he started facing issues in operating his mobile phone and carrying out banking transactions. The woman then obtained his banking details and all his ATM cards in her possession and started making financial transactions on his behalf, they said.

In April, the woman took him to the registration office under the guise of providing legal assistance and asked him to sign documents without his knowledge. She got one third of his property transferred in her name as a gift deed, the police official said.

She also collected property-related documents, gold ornaments, signed cheques, credit cards, debit cards and other important documents, he said.

Her wrongdoing came to light after the victim's housing society informed his son about getting an application to transfer the share certificate in the woman's name, the official added.