She had turned to him in her darkest hour and he repaid her trust by cheating her. A terrible tale of deceit unfolded on Wednesday when officers of the detective department zeroed in on Gopal Krishna Saha, 41, for cheating Rehana Begum, his friend?s widow, of Rs 2.31 lakh.

When Mehar Ali, 44, died four months ago, his friend and colleague Saha stepped forward and assured Rehana, 35, help in sorting out her late husband?s financial matters in the form of shares and personal bonds. He promised to sell them and deposit the money in her account.

Rehana, with a four-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter, really needed the money.

?But after getting 105 shares of a multinational firm and some bonds, Saha sold them off by forging Mehar Ali?s signature. Later he transferred the total amount of Rs 2.31 lakh to his bank account,? the officer explained.

Rehana grew suspicious when Saha kept stalling for two months and then stopped coming to her Garden Reach house or responding to her phone calls. A fortnight ago, she went to his office ? a reputed private firm ? but Saha refused to meet her. When she insisted, he turned hostile. ?He told her some of the shares were fake and nobody was buying them. Rehana asked him to return the documents. When Saha failed, she approached police.?

?Our officers arrested him from his house at Bhadrakali, in Hooghly,? said deputy commissioner of police (detective department) Gyanwant Singh.

?I wanted to start a business but had no capital,? Saha confessed during interrogation. He was produced in a city court and remanded in police custody for seven days.