MUMBAI, July 1 -- The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police has frozen the demat accounts of Purshottam Chavan, 53, husband of IPS officer Rashmi Karandikar, and his mother, Urmila, in a Rs.24.78 crore cheating case. The police said that out of the defrauded amount, Chavan invested huge sums in his and his mother's names in the share market. Police have also found out that around Rs.2.63 crore was transferred to the mother's account. "We have frozen demat accounts of Purshottam Chavan and his mother Urmila. When we arrested Chavan on May 20 in a cheating case of Rs.24.78 crore, his interrogation revealed that the money was transferred to various demat accounts and invested in share markets," said a police officer from EOW. The police said that he used to first transfer the money from one of his bank accounts to another account, and from there to his mother's account, and then to the demat account. In this way, he kept transferring money from 2017 till 2024. "We have written to the share broking firm and carried out a debit as well as credit freeze of the demat accounts of both Chavan and his mother," said the police officer. The EOW had in February this year registered a case against Chavan and eight others for allegedly defrauding 19 people of Rs.24.78 crore by promising them government flats at discounted rates. The fraud came to light after the ED arrested Chavan in connection with a Rs.263.95 crore Income Tax refund fraud case. During investigation, the ED discovered various property registration documents at his home in Colaba, which were handed over to the EOW. The EOW registered a fresh case based on the ED findings on a complaint by Kedar Dighevekar, who was defrauded of Rs.3.5 crore in the name of an apartment in a posh locality. Dighevekar said he paid Chavan Rs.3.5 crore for the flat and Chavan even arranged a fake registration process to convince him about the legitimacy of the deal....