Bihar floods drown cops' hopes

MUMBAI: The flood-ravaged regions of Bihar are giving sleepless nights not only to its stranded residents, but also to a city police team. Cops from the Colaba police station are on the trail of key accused Raju Tiwari in connection with the Rs 80-lakh fake paintings racket. The team of policemen has been trying to reach Patna, where Tiwari is holed up, but the floods are delaying them, said sources.
Last Thursday, the police arrested Shyamsunder Desai, the owner of Sahiil art gallery in Colaba while he was trying to sell the fake of artist Subodh Gupta's work. Desai, under the cops' directions, was then asked to telephone Tiwari and summon him to Mumbai. The police planned to nab him outside the domestic airport itself. But Tiwari smelt a rat when Desai kept insisting on phone that he should reach the city immediately. Since then, Tiwari has switched off his cellphone, police sources said.
"Tiwari works from New Delhi and is a key accused. We suspect he has been forging paintings using a computer before circulating them to the gallery owners known to him,'' a senior official said. The police are also probing if Tiwari has been involved in stealing authentic paintings.
Recently, Tiwari had collected an amount of Rs 4 lakh as advance payment from Desai for a set of 12 fake paintings.
"We have identified those 12 paintings. Desai used to pretend that these were works of renowned artists like Sunil Desai, Thota Vaikuntam and Jogen Chowdhary. We have also started contacting buyers and will record their statements to make our case stronger,'' said deputy commissioner Vishwas Nangre-Patil.
Of the 82 paintings seized, 12 were found at an art gallery in Lalbaug, also run by Desai. Representatives from Sotheby's have approached the police to have a look at all the seized paintings. Experts from the JJ School of Art have also been examining the paintings to determine their authenticity. "So far, we have established that 50 of the seized paintings are genuine. These have been made by new artists and will be returned to them, after a court approval,'' said investigating officer S D Deshmukh. Desai has been in touch with Tiwari for the past two years. The Colaba gallery was rented at a monthly amount of Rs 35,000 by Desai.
"Desai had created a professional-looking website for the Colaba gallery. We suspect that most of his business was done online and the clients were non-English speaking foreigners,'' a police official said.
The police said more arrests are likely.
toireporter@timesgroup.com