Delhi traders try to cremate a mannequin to claim insurance money

The police have now arrested the traders from Delhi for attempting to commit fraud by claiming insurance money.

A shocking case has made headlines in which two traders from Delhi used a fraudulent method to claim insurance money. They tried cremating a mannequin to claim the insurance money.

Two Delhi traders cremate a mannequin for claiming insurance money.

The incident happened in Hapur, where the police arrested two Delhi-based traders after they allegedly tried to cremate a mannequin instead of a human body as part of an elaborate plot for fraudulently claiming the insurance money worth ₹50 lakh to pay a debt, said police on Friday.

More on the bizarre incident of claiming insurance money.

The bizarre incident unfolded when four men arrived in a Haryana-registered car with what they claimed was a corpse. They bought ghee and other items required for the last rites and quietly placed the “body” on a pyre. However, Nitin, a municipal employee present at the cremation ghat, noticed their nervousness. When he pulled the sheet covering the “body,” he found that it was actually a mannequin on the pyre. He immediately alerted the municipal authorities, police said. After receiving information, a police team rushed to the spot and recovered the car of the accused along with three mannequins. Circle Officer Stuti Singh said, “To repay the amount, he devised an elaborate scheme. He obtained the Aadhaar and PAN cards of Anshul, the brother of his employee Neeraj, on the pretext of some paperwork, took out a ₹50 lakh Tata AIA insurance policy in Anshul’s name nearly a year ago, and had been paying the premiums regularly.” The plan was to send Anshul out of town, pass the mannequin off as his body, cremate it to obtain an official receipt from the cremation ground, secure a death certificate, and then claim the insurance payout, police said.

The police said that two of the accused, Kamal Somani and his associate Ashish Khurana, both residents of Jain Colony in Delhi’s Uttam Nagar, were arrested, and two of their associates managed to escape. During interrogation, Somani, a textile trader, confessed that he had a debt of ₹50 lakh and had been depressed for months. Police used Somani’s phone to video call Anshul, who was in Prayagraj. He told police he had no idea his death was being staged at Brijghat, they said.