3 conmen held for posing as Railway cops & duping 2 Hingoli police officers of Rs 5,000 each

Chatrapati Sambhajinagar: The Hingoli police arrested three men from Madhya Pradesh after they allegedly posed as Railway Police officers and cheated an inspector and an assistant inspector of Hingoli by narrating a fake story about a girl's death on railway tracks in Khandwa of Madhya Pradesh. The arrests came within two days of the two Hingoli policemen being duped.The police said the local crime branch acted swiftly to crack what appeared to be a well-organised interstate racket targeting senior officers across the country, and cheating them of petty amounts."Prima facie, it appears that the accused men intentionally cheated officers of petty amounts as the officers — often fearing public shaming as well as involvement of small amounts — avoid registering FIRs and pursuing the cases," said a senior officer.Hingoli superintendent of police Neepabh Rohan said the case came to light when Kalamnuri inspector Premkumar Makode received a call from a mobile number. The caller claimed to be Manoj Kumar, a GRP inspector from Khandwa railway station, and said a girl named Khushboo Patil, from Ward No. 6 in Kalamnuri, had died after being run over by a train in Khandwa.He claimed the girl's family was extremely poor and could not afford an ice box to transport the body, and requested Rs 5,000 as financial help. Taking the situation seriously on humanitarian grounds, the Kalamnuri police inspector arranged to transfer the money online.The police said the same caller soon contacted assistant inspector Gajanan Borate, of the Basmat rural police station, and narrated a similar story, this time claiming the girl was from Basmat. In that case, too, money was transferred.The police said the two officers later spoke to each other for official reasons and found out that they had received calls from the same caller who narrated identical stories. Suspicion arose when the Hingoli police verified the incident and found no record of any such accidental death of a girl named Khushboo Patil in Khandwa or elsewhere.A cyber probe traced the mobile number to Juna village, under Rehli police station limits in Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh. "A local crime branch team went to the location and detained Amit Kurmi (34), Virsing Gond (40) and Bharat Kurmi (55). Another accused, Sitaram Kurmi (19), has also been identified, but he is currently absconding," said LCB inspector Mohan Bhosale.LCB assistant inspector Shivsamb Gheware said, "During interrogation, the accused confessed to operating as a gang and posing as Railway Police officers to target officials across India. They obtained mobile numbers of district collectors, superintendents of police, police station in-charges, deputy SPs and even ministers through online sources, and duped them by fabricating similar stories of poor girls dying in railway accidents and seeking money for transportation of their bodies."The police said the probe revealed the accused were history-sheeters with multiple fraud cases registered against them, and a further probe is underway to identify more victims and the full extent of the racket.