Kasaragod: On June 18, Sruthi Chandrashekar (32) booked a slot for a press conference the following day at Kasaragod Press Club, saying she wanted to talk about a woman police officer assaulting her at the Women's Cell when she went there to file a complaint of sexual assault.
The reporters in Kasaragod were familiar with Sruthi because it was on her complaint that Mangaluru's East Police arrested a Kanhangad-based gym trainer for sexual assault on May 30.

On June 19, the Press Club was jam-packed but Sruthi did not turn up. Her phone was switched off. But one of the reporters said he came to confirm if this Sruthi was the same one who allegedly swindled 76 gm of gold ornaments and Rs 2.18 lakh from his younger brother, a lab technician, and his woman colleague in 2021. She turned out to be the same person.

The failed press conference triggered the unspooling of Sruthi, who has been allegedly swindling lakhs of rupees from police officers, bank manager, gym-goers, and lab technicians, posing as an 'assistant engineer' with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) or a 'sub-inspector' with the Income Tax Department or a civil service aspirant. Her modus operandi: Meet her victims on social media or through matrimonial sites, get close and propose to them, and swindle money by cooking up stories of her illness.

By the time they realise they were duped, Sruthi will have enough "incriminating" messages or photographs of her victims to file a counter-complaint and frame them, said police. Sruthi, a native of Kombanadukam in Kasaragod's Chemnad panchayat was married at 18 and has two sons. She has filed for divorce from her NRI husband. Her maternal uncle said she even filed a fake complaint against him and his wife for questioning her wayward life.

One young civil police officer attached to the Armed Reserved Camp in Thrissur lost his job last year and reportedly Rs 16 lakh after Sruthi accused him of sexual assault. Another senior civil police officer in Kasaragod who almost exposed Sruthi in 2021, is facing disciplinary proceedings. "The department is still cutting my one-year increment. All because the department chose to believe her when I exposed her lies in 2021 when she walked into my police station posing as a sub-inspector of the Income Tax Department," he said.

Sruthi booked but goes into hiding
Two days after the failed press conference, Kasaragod's Melparamba Police booked Sruthi for criminal breach of trust, cheating and criminal intimidation. The case was filed on a complaint by a 30-year-old gym-goer from Poinachi near Kasaragod. He said he met Sruthi on Instagram and she introduced herself as an ISRO employee. Over the months, they became close and between October 1, 2023, and June 16, 2024, she took Rs 1 lakh in cash and 8gm of gold from him, according to the FIR. She allegedly threatened to slap a sexual assault case against him if he persisted with asking for the money back, it said.

Police officers said Sruthi was not the one to make empty threats. In May, she had approached the Melparamba station accusing a 29-year-old gym trainer of sexually assaulting her. The police did not register an FIR because her complaint did not add up.

But she filed a complaint with Mangaluru's East Police Station saying the gym trainer sexually assaulted and blackmailed her while she was undergoing treatment in a hospital in the city on March 18. She also alleged that he raped her again in a hotel in Mangaluru for four days in April and again in May when she was hospitalised for food poisoning.

On May 30, Mangaluru police arrested him for rape. After spending three weeks in prison, he is out on bail. Closeness to Sruthi cost him his reputation, freedom and Rs 5 lakh. "My mother lost her gold chain too," he said.

His mother said Sruthi introduced herself as an assistant engineer with ISRO with a salary of Rs 85,000. She reportedly told the gym trainer that she was on leave and wanted to lose weight. "One day, she showed me her engagement card and said she was not interested in the marriage and proposed to me," the gym trainer said. The engagement card said the venue was Kanhangad's Akash Auditorium, which never reopened after the COVID-19 pandemic.

During their courtship, Sruthi used to get admitted to hospitals for various illnesses and he used to pay the bills. "To pay back, she gave me three cheques of Rs 80,000, Rs 3.14 lakh, and Rs 4.50 lakh. All bounced," he said.
She even conned his mother. "She stayed in my house for five days. While leaving she asked for my gold chain and promised to return in one hour," she said. The mother never got her chain back.

Blood cancer to con lab technicians
After Melparamba police registered a case against Sruthi, two lab technicians, a male and a female, in Kasaragod approached the Kasaragod town police with their complaint on June 24. They said Sruthi swindled gold worth Rs 50.35 lakh (76 gm) and Rs 2.18 lakh from them in 2021. "Sruthi was my friend but she said she was working as an Income Tax sub-inspector in Thiruvananthapuram," said the woman lab technician. She told the duo that she was battling blood cancer and needed money for treatment. They gave her Rs 2.18 lakh. "After she recovered, she told us that she got a job in Federal Bank as a manager in Thiruvananthapuram," said the woman lab technician.

By then the male lab technician needed money for building his house. But Sruthi bought time by giving excuses. To meet his financial needs, his sister and the woman technician gave their gold jewellery (76 gm) to pawn.

But later, Sruthi said she would get him a home loan and gave him a cheque. The cheque bounced. In March 2021, Sruthi agreed to redeem the gold and the two technicians authorised her to collect it. "She redeemed the gold but never returned it," said the male lab technician's brother.

When they started asking for the gold and money, she filed a complaint against them with the Kasaragod Town Police. "In three days of my investigation, I found that Sruthi was lying. When I called her and the male lab technician to the station, she came with the ID card of a sub-inspector with the Income Tax Department. Everything about her was fake," said the senior police officer who was in charge of the general diary (GD) then. When she realised she was exposed, she offered to bribe him and asked for his Gpay number. "When I did not fall for it, she filed a complaint against me," he said. She then filed a complaint against him with Kasaragod DySP, who asked the then SHO -- Inspector K V Babu to investigate. "He sided with Sruthi and gave a report that resulted in the department cutting the police officer's increment," said another officer.

Another officer in Kannur lost Rs 95,000 after she proposed to him. A bank manager lost Rs 7 lakh after he fell into her marriage proposal trap. A temple official lost Rs 1.5 lakh after he met her in a hospital when she was getting treatment for a 'snake bite'.
Officers said she created multiple accounts with matrimonial sites in various castes and sought out young professionals and police officers.