Delhi: Man held for duping ex-govt official of Rs 9 lakh in 'digital arrest' fraud
New Delhi (PTI): The Delhi Police has arrested a man from Faridabad for allegedly duping a retired government official of Rs 9 lakh after putting him under ‘digital arrest’, an official said on Saturday.
On August 8, the 76-year-old victim from Keshavapuram filed a police complaint alleging that he received video calls from fraudsters posing as CBI officials, they said.
"The callers accused him of being involved in money laundering and threatened to arrest him unless he paid Rs 9 lakh immediately. Under fear, the complainant transferred the money in two transactions into the bank account provided by the accused," Deputy Commissioner of Police (Northwest) Bhisham Singh said.
The victim, a retired government telecommunication engineer, then filed a complaint at Cyber Police Station, following which a case was registered and a probe launched, the police said.
Digital footprints and technical surveillance helped identify Sonu Ansari, a resident of Faridabad in Haryana, though his current location remained unknown for some time, the DCP said.
After sustained efforts, he was traced and arrested from Faridabad, he added.
During interrogation, Ansari confessed to his role and disclosed that he opened an account on the instructions of Prateek Dubey, who promised him money in return. The entire cheated amount was credited to this account before being routed elsewhere, the police said.
Ansari opened the account used in the fraud on the basis of a forged rent agreement and was not residing at the address provided in the bank records, the officer said.
Efforts are on to trace Dubey and ascertain Ansari's involvement in other similar fraud cases, the DCP said.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
2019 mud attack on engineer: Maharashtra court sentences BJP minister Nitesh Rane to one-month jail
Mumbai (PTI): A court in Sindhudurg on Monday convicted Maharashtra minister Nitesh Rane in a 2019 case of pouring mud on an NHAI engineer when he was in opposition, and sentenced him to one-month imprisonment, noting that lawmakers are not supposed to take the law into their hands.
Later, the court suspended Rane's sentence, allowing him time to appeal before a higher court, while acquitting 29 other accused in the case.
"Even though Rane's intention was to raise a voice against the poor quality of work and inconvenience faced by the people, he was not supposed to humiliate or insult a public servant in public," additional sessions court judge V S Deshmukh stated.
"If such incidents continue to occur, public servants would not be able to discharge their duties with dignity," the judge noted.
ALSO READ: 19-yr-old woman found hanging from tree in UP village; juvenile held
Calling the act "abuse of power", the court held that "it is the demand of time to curb such tendency".
Rane, a son of former Union minister Narayan Rane, was among 30 people charged under various offences, including rioting, assault to deter a public servant, and criminal conspiracy. He was in Congress when the incident occurred.
All the accused, including Nitesh Rane, were acquitted of these offences, as the court found insufficient evidence to support most of these claims.
However, the court found Nitesh Rane guilty of an offence under section 504 (intentional insult meant to provoke a breach of public peace) and sentenced him to one month's jail.
Rane, then a Congress MLA, had called the Sub-Divisional Engineer of the National Highway Authority, Prakash Shedekar, to a bridge over the Gad river in Kankavli on July 4, 2019, for inspecting the work to widen the Mumbai-Goa Highway.
According to the prosecution, Nitesh Rane and his followers, frustrated by the poor quality of the roadwork and waterlogging, confronted the engineer. They poured muddy water on Shedekar and forced him to walk through slush in public.
The court, after perusing the evidence on record, noted that the informant (victim) was holding a high post in the National Highway Authority.
"Despite that, he was made to walk through the muddy water in public. It would have certainly humiliated and insulted him," the court remarked.
The judge held that Rane compelling Shedekar to walk through the muddy water "was nothing but an intentional insult to the informant," and provocation which will cause him to break the public peace.
