Man poses as food inspector to dupe shop owner, held

Mumbai: Police arrested a 31-year-old man for allegedly posing as a food safety officer and attempting to extort money from a Powai grocer on Saturday. The suspect, Vardan Salunkhe, visited Kamal General Store at 5pm, displayed a govt ID card to Kiran Patel (42), and demanded to see his shop licence.Salunkhe presented himself as Akshay Patil and showed a forged ID card claiming to be a food safety officer from the Food Safety Department (Govt of India). A police officer from Powai police station stated, "Salunkhe had forged the ID card in order to dupe Patel. It is suspected that Salunkhe may have duped people in the past looking at the modus operandi he has adopted. We are verifying if there is any FIR against Salunkhe in the city."The deception was found when two BMC marshalls, who were visiting the premises, became suspicious and asked to examine Salunkhe's identification card. Despite his attempt to escape, the marshals apprehended him and uncovered his extortion scheme.Patel stated in his complaint: "I believed the accused when he showed the govt ID card. But, soon the matter was clear when two BMC marshals — Shamsher Yadav and Bhavesh Basin — who visited my shop on suspicion asked the accused to show his ID card and also enquired about which department from Mumbai he was with. This made the accused try to flee." The marshals pursued and caught the suspect before alerting the police. A police officer said, "During inquiry, the accused confessed that he created fake ID card and tried to dupe the shop owner."
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