Mumbai
Updated : Dec 21, 2014, 06:10 AM IST
A man posing as an IAS officer, claiming to be on deputation with the Intelligence Bureau (IB), was on Friday night arrested, along with his two associates, for impersonation and cheating. The accused would dupe citizens by flaunting their high-profile connections and take money after promising them tenders and contracts. The trio's bluff was called when they tried to dupe a TV journalist, who alerted the police.
According to the Borivli police, the main accused, Ashwini Sopar, 36, and his associates Anil Chaudhary, 46, and Vinod Jha, 41, contacted the journalist and promised him a contract in a central government project if he was willing to pay them the money.
"The meeting happened in a hotel in Borivli. When the accused met the journalist, he introduced himself as an IB officer," said deputy commissioner of police Balsingh Rajput. "The journalist immediately sensed something amiss and alerted the local police station."
Later, as per the plan devised by the police, a plain-clothed policeman accompanied the journalist to few more meetings. The policeman soon caught Sopar's bluff after he failed to answer basic questions posed to him about his educational qualification, cadre and year of passing out from the IAS institute. On Friday night, the police laid a trap and arrested the three when they met the journalist, who was asked to get Rs20,000 as a token of the total payment for the government contract.
"The accused had duped three more people that day — two were promised jobs for their kids and one had paid them Rs8 lakh for a house in Delhi," said Rajput.
"We are investigating if there were more people involved in the racket. We found out during the investigation that Sopar had been staying at the hotel for the last few days and had an outstanding bill in lakhs of rupees."
According to the police, Sopar had clicked the picture of some government official on his phone and would flaunt it to people, claiming it was his ID card. The police have seized a lot of documents from the hotel room, which the accused allegedly collected from the victims.
The police have booked Sopar, Jha and Chaudhary for impersonation and cheating, they have been remanded in police custody till December 29.