Sheetel Mafatlal booked for lodging ‘false complaint’ regarding stolen artwork

The complaint filed by Sheetal dates back to 2012, when a local court had directed the Gamdevi Police Station to probe the allegations made by Sheetal that her expensive art work was replaced by fakes. In May, the police filed a closure report concluding that the case filed by Sheetal was ‘made up’. Last month, a local court upheld police’s findings and ordered action against Sheetal.

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Confirming the development, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) K M M Prasanna said, “Acting on the directives of the court, a case has been registered against Sheetal and the Crime Branch unit is investigating it”.

In the complaint filed by Sheetal in 2012, she had alleged that 31 paintings, which she had kept for safe custody with her three friends, were replaced by them with fakes. “However, during the probe we recovered over 40 paintings from one of the offices of Sheetal’s firm at Princess Street. The probe revealed that Sheetal herself had replaced the original paintings had kept it hidden to falsely implicate her friends,” an officer said.

The paintings included works by M F Husain, F N Souza and S H Raza, Sheetal had stated in her complaint.

rashmi.rajput@expressindia.com