Prasanna Sankar, who co-founded Rippling with Parker Conrad, is on the run from Chennai Police, alleging extortion and harassment by cops following a series of legal battles with his estranged wife, Dhivya. Sankar claims that his wife pressed false cases, including rape and domestic violence against him as part of a bitter divorce and custody dispute.
In a now-viral series of posts on X (formerly Twitter) on March 23, Prasanna Sankar alleged that his wife of 10 years, Dhivya, cheated on him with a man named, Anoop, for over six months. He said he discovered the alleged affair after receiving WhatsApp screenshots and hotel booking details from Anoop’s wife.
Divorce and custody
Following this, the couple, according to Sankar, filed for divorce and began negotiating an alimony settlement. However, Dhivya was dissatisfied with the amount, so she filed a domestic violence complaint against him.
“She was unhappy and decided to instead file a fake police complaint against me saying I hit her. Later, she made further fake complaints that I raped her (a month after the alleged rape). That I circulated her nude videos, etc. Singapore police have investigated these allegations, found them baseless, and have cleared me from all charges,” he wrote on X.
While Prasanna filed for divorce in India, Dhivya filed for it in the US. He also claimed that she tried to kidnap their son and take him to the US to gain an advantage in the divorce case. “I filed an international child abduction case in the US. The judge ruled in favour of me and asked her to return the child.”
MoU between Prasanna and Dhivya
The estranged couple then signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) under which Sankar agreed to pay Rs 9 crore and Rs 4.3 lakh per month in financial support. They settled on a 50-50 custody arrangement for their son.
“As part of the MOU, she had to deposit the child’s passport in a common locker since I was worried she could fly away. She refused to follow it. She started claiming that the MOU was not valid and she wanted more [money] and would go to the US again to file a divorce,” he claimed.
Cops showed up at mother’s house
According to Sankar, he then moved court. The situation escalated when Dhivya refused to attend court hearings and instead showed up at his hotel at 10 PM to meet their son. “Instead, she showed up at my hotel at 10 PM in the night and called my son to the lobby for 10 minutes luring him which I stopped.”
This escalated into something that Prasanna didn’t think his college sweetheart would do.
“She then chose to call the police and filed a kidnapping complaint against me. The police knocked on the door in the middle of the night before which I was able to escape with my son. I immediately sent the police my side of the story with my lawyers and explained the child was voluntarily handed over. And the child is happy with me and show him on a video call. And that the matters are before the court. Hence cops shouldn’t interfere.”
He added that despite presenting his side of the story, the cops not only tried to track him down but also visited his mother’s house in search of him. They allegedly harassed his friend, Gokul, even threatening to name him as an accused in the case if he refused to disclose Prasanna’s whereabouts.
Prasanna alleges extortion by Chennai Police
After Gokul fled to Bengaluru, the police located him and brought him back to Chennai. “They are telling him if I don’t surrender he’d be harassed. They have not produced him in front of a magistrate. Instead every morning they call him to the station and make him sit till night and let him go.” Prasanna further alleged that the police are demanding Rs 25 lakh to release his friend.
“My entire family, is out of the state, hiding from the Tamil Nadu cops,” he claimed.
He also alleged, “My cell phone location, car, UPI, IP everything is being tracked by the cops. Illegally without any FIR. They went and seized the phone of a caretaker I paid Rs 200 to via UPI and hit the Airbnb where I was staying. Luckily got out before.”
Prasanna Sankar and Dhivya met 10 years ago at the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli (NIT Trichy). Sankar left Rippling in 2020 and founded 0xPPL, a social network for crypto natives, in January 2023.