Con men pose as cops, dupe victims out of jewellery

Omkar Khandekar

The crimes were committed by two separate groups.

Men posing as police officers conned two individuals of jewellery worth Rs 1.3 lakh in separate incidents in Borivali (East) within two days. The first incident occurred on July 16, when the complainant, 52-year-old Umashankar Singh, was returning home from work. While waiting for a bus at the Ellora Hotel bus stop in Borivali (East) at 8pm, an unidentified man approached him.

“The stranger said he was an official with the Crime Branch and claimed that there had been a murder in the vicinity,” said sub-inspector J B Chavan of the Kasturba police. “He told Singh that his senior wanted him to identify the victim.”

Singh followed the impostor to a ill-lit compound adjoining a dilapidated building near Hemraj High School. There, the stranger asked Singh to remove his gold chain and ring worth Rs 75,000 and put them in his pocket. As Singh removed the valuables, the impostor pushed him, grabbed the jewellery and ran away.

In a separate incident on the afternoon of July 19, Vanita Shelar, a housemaid, was on her way to work when, at around 3 pm, two unidentified men accosted her as she was entering Gagandeep building at Raidongri, Borivali (East). “They announced themselves as police officers and asked her to stop. When she protested, they threatened to take her to their higher-ups if she tried to act smart. Then they asked her to prove her identity,” said sub-inspector Rajashri Patil of the Kasturba police.

When Shelar said she wasn’t carrying any ID, they asked her to fetch her household electricity bill. They then asked her to give them her mangalsutra and earring as a guarantee till she returned. In turn, she was given a piece of paper with two phone numbers, which the men claimed were their own. When Shelar returned with the bill 20 minutes later, the men had disappeared and the numbers turned out to be invalid.

Kasturba police said the crimes were committed by two separate groups of criminals and FIRs have been registered for impersonating a public servant, cheating and other crimes.