PSI held after he duped 2 of Rs 19 lakh

The Manikpur police of Vasai has arrested a police sub-inspector (PSI) attached to the Goregaon police station on Saturday for posing as a commissioner of the income tax department and conning two Vasai residents of `19 lakh.

Police sources said the PSI in December 2013 had allegedly promised to provide them jobs in the income tax department and then borrowed money from them.

Later, two other residents of Vasai were also arrested in the case. The accused have been identified as Suresh Amrut Rao Kadam (55), a resident of Dongri police quarters and sub-inspector at Goregaon police station, and Moin ul Haq Baitulla (46) and Jagannath Raut (34), both of whom are residents of Vasai.

According to police officials, in 2013, Kadam posed as a commissioner of the income tax department and assumed the name Anil Kulkarni. It was Baitulla who introduced him to the two local Vasai residents. Baitulla and Raut allegedly told the complainants that Kulkarni (Kadam) could provide them jobs in the income tax department. The complainants believed the story.

Later, Kadam borrowed Rs 8,82,000 and Rs 11,24,600 from the victims. However, when there was no response from Kadam regarding the job even after six months, the complainants enquired with Baitulla, who then started avoiding them.

In the last two years, the complainants did not get any response from the accused and realised that they had been fooled. In December 2015, the victims lodged a police complaint in Manikpur.

Ranjit Pawar, senior police inspector of Manikpur police station in Vasai (west), told this paper that an FIR had been registered in the case on December 2, 2015. After investigation, on May 10, the police arrested PSI Kadam, and produced him in court. The court remanded him in police custody and during interrogation, he directed the police to Raut and Baitulla who were on the run. On May 13 night, they were also arrested from Safale area of Palghar district and produced in court on Saturday.

All the accused were produced before the local court in Vasai and remanded in police custody for three days.