Navi Mumbai: Police on Thursday arrested a woman who was extorting money from businessmen and others by pretending to be a police officer. Bhakti alias Sarika Sitaram Shinde, 30, was doing this for some years and had even visited police stations pretending to be a State Intelligence Department official, the police said.
She was produced before the court on Friday and has been remanded to police custody till December 20. The case came to light after Shinde’s husband Pradeep Namdev Mhatre, 46, filed a complaint against her on December 10 with Koparkhairane police saying he suspected that she was a con.
According to the police, Shinde, who hails from Pune, is suspected to have extorted money from bar owners, bar girls and businessmen on the pretext of being a police officer. She also extorted money from law offenders for “settling” matters, the police said.
A science graduate, Shinde first married one Sambhaji Eknath Pirdavde from Pune, with whom she has a 16-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter.
After Pirdavde’s death, she married a Kalyan resident Sunil Kolte in 2014. According to the police, Kolte knew her as a police officer. The duo later divorced. “Shinde had demanded alimony of Rs. 20 lakh from her second husband and bought property with it,” Inspector Vijay Tayade at Koparkhairane Police Station said.
Earlier this year, she married Mhatre. Police said. “Mhatre would constantly question her about which station she was posted at, on which she claimed to be with CID. He would want to know why she regularly wore a police uniform. Shinde then started threatening him that if he asked further questions, she would lodge a false complaint against him and put him behind bars.” Mr. Tayade said.
Police said that Mhatre was not aware of Shinde's children or her previous marriages. Shinde left Mhatre after he did not stop questioning her, which is when he lodged a complaint. “On investigation, we found there was no such cop in Maharashtra Police,” Mr. Tayade said.
Koparkhairane police were trying to trace Shinde since December 10 and she was arrested in Kalyan on Thursday evening. A fake ID card, police uniforms and many photographs of Shinde with other police officers were found in her possession.
“The exact number of years of this fraud cannot be confirmed yet. She had visited many police stations in Navi Mumbai as well as in rural areas of Pune, but no one doubted her,” said Senior Police Inspector Satish Gaikwad of Koparkhairane police station.
Mr. Gaikwad added that during her visits to the police stations, she would make friendly conversations and click pictures with police officers. She was even felicitated at many school functions and local events.
Shinde has been arrested under Sections 170, 171, 465, 468 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code.
The writer is a freelance journalist
