‘Baba’ runs out of luck, after 22 years

A former computer operator who allegedly defrauded the ABI of ₹50 lakh, Chalapathi Rao had lived across five States as a loan recovery agent, a school staff and as a godman.

For 22 years, V. Chalapathi Rao had been living many lives. A former computer operator who allegedly defrauded the State Bank of India (SBI) of ₹50 lakh, Mr. Rao had lived across five States as a loan recovery agent, a school staff and as a ‘baba’ (godman). He would change his appearance, identity and location at will, throwing sleuths of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), in his hot pursuit, off the scent. He also got his wife, an accomplice in the case, file a missing person report and attempted to have him declared dead. But his luck ran out on Sunday when the CBI arrested him from Narsinganallur village in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli just when he was planning to escape to Sri Lanka through the sea.

On May 1, 2002, the CBI had registered the case against Mr. Rao, computer operator with the SBI’s Chandulal Biradari branch in Hyderabad, on the charges that he had cheated the bank of using fake quotations of electronic shops and salary certificates in the names of his family members and close associates.

Based on findings, the agency filed two chargesheets on December 31, 2004. However, by then, Mr. Rao had given the agency the slip. The CBI found that his wife had lodged a missing person report on July 10, 2004. “She filed a petition in a civil court to get him declared dead on completion of seven years from the day he went missing,” said the agency.

Mr. Rao was declared a proclaimed offender on April 18, 2013, in the case. By then, the CBI had learnt that he had been to Salem in Tamil Nadu where he had assumed a new identity, M. Vineet Kumar, and married another woman in 2007. He got an Aadhaar card and before the agency got a whiff of his whereabouts, he vanished. Through his second wife, the CBI found out that Mr. Rao was in touch with his son from his first marriage.

In 2014, he shifted to Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, and worked as a loan recovery agent. He then travelled to Rudrapur in Uttarakhand, where he worked in a school. Following his trail, the sleuths reached Rudrapur only to find that Mr. Rao had fled in 2016.

The CBI said from Uttarakhand Mr. Rao travelled to Aurangabad in Maharashtra where his new avatar was that of Swami Vidhitatmanand Teertha at an ashram in Verul village. There he got another Aadhaar card and made several people his disciples. He lived there till December 2021 and disappeared after allegedly cheating the ashram of ₹70 lakh.

The ‘godman’ fled to Bharatpur, Rajasthan, where he stayed till July 8, 2024, and then reached Tirunelveli to stay with a disciple when the CBI nabbed him, having tracked their target down through ‘technical intelligence’. The agency had gathered inputs from Gmail’s law enforcement department on the basis of email addresses Mr. Rao had used. Details of the Aadhaar number of Vineet Kumar were also examined.