Kanta Prasad, the owner of popular eatery ‘Baba Ka Dhaba’ in south Delhi’s Malviya Nagar, has filed a complaint against YouTuber Gaurav Wasan for allegedly misappropriating funds that were raised to help him and his wife. He also alleged cheating, mischief, criminal breach of trust, a criminal conspiracy by Wasan.
The 80-year-old Prasad had shot to fame after a video of him tearfully recounting the desperation of the months since the lockdown was shared widely across social media platforms recently.
Ironically, Prasad’s despair had come to light when Wasan captured the eatery owner breaking down as he talked about his struggles in a video shared on the YouTuber’s social media account.
In his complaint to police, Prasad said Wasan shot his video and posted it online and convinced the public on social media to donate money to the eatery onwer.
He further alleged that Wasan “intentionally and deliberately shared only his and his family/friends bank details and mobile numbers with the donors and collected huge amount of donation through different mode of payments i.e bank account/wallets without providing any information to the complainant”.
The owner of the food joint also accused the YouTuber of not providing details of the financial transactions to him.
“We received the complaint yesterday at the Malviya Nagar Police Station and the matter is being probed. No FIR has been registered yet in the case,” Atul Kumar Thakur, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South), said.
Meanwhile, Wasan denied the allegations and said he transferred all the money into Prasad’s account: “When I shot the video, I didn’t know it would become this big. I didn’t want people to harass Baba (Prasad) so I shared my bank details…”
After the video went viral, Baba ka Dhaba was the cynosure of many eyes across the country, including celebs from showbiz who posted appeals asking people to go there and get themselves a meal.
A day after the heartbreaking video, #Babakadhaba was trending on Twitter and the food joint was flooded with more customers than it had seen in 30 years of being in business.