Indore: In a real life version of the Bollywood film ‘Special 26’, the police on Tuesday arrested a gang of men posing as CBI officers, who swindled Rs 40 lakh by recruiting 75 unemployed youths in Indore.
Released in 2013, ‘Special 26’ was a story of a gang in the 1980s that conducted fake income tax raids and promised people jobs in the agency. In an uncanny similarity to the film’s narrative, the arrested gang ran training centres in residential colonies of Indore and recruited jobless youths as ‘IT officers’ to conduct fake raids.
The police have seized fake IDs, seals, letterheads, vehicles with registration plate of the IT Department, badges and uniforms.
The case came to light after a resident complained to the police of certain people roaming around posing as IT officers in the city. The complainant told the police that he recently got in touch with a man called Devendra, who introduced himself as a Chief Investigation Officer and also had an ID card.
Devendra took his documents and offered him an appointment letter with the seal of the Chief Commissioner of the Income Tax Department, Indore. The fake officer promised the complainant a salary of Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000 after three months of joining, but the salary was never given. “Whenever we asked for our salaries, the man told us the government didn’t have the budget for it,” the complainant said.
Acting on the tip off, the Crime Branch and police jointly arrested Devendra Dabar, Sunil, Ravi Solanki, Durgesh Gehlot and Satish Gawad, all natives of Indore.
Further investigations revealed that after hiring people, the mastermind of the plan, Devendra, with the help of his associates Sunil and Ravi, taught his recruits the Income Tax provisions. The office located in Silicon City also hired half a dozen peons and drivers, spotting khaki uniforms and had around 40 recruits working in the office, the police said.
Uniform-clad Devendra drove a car with the registration plate that read ‘GOI and Income Tax Dept’ and and was accompanied by a peon and a driver at all times, the police added.
His driver Satish Gawade, told the police that Devendra used to hire young people from nearby areas and planned IT-raids at several places. “He also fot case files prepared from the recruits to conduct the raids,” he added.
Devendra was planning to carry out raids at three dozen places through the team of hired youths, said DIG Indore Ruchiwardhan Mishra.
A native of Indore, Devendra is an undergraduate drop out and reportedly hatched the plan after getting inspired by an IT-department recruitment advertisement. He is an expert in computers and said he gained his knowledge of IT provisions through the internet and books, the police said. He has confessed to police that he earned Rs 40 lakh through his fraudulent operations.
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