Man arrested for duping Delhi Speaker on pretext of donating plasma

Delhi Police have arrested a 23-year-old man who allegedly duped Delhi assembly speaker Ram Niwas Goel and a friend on the pretext of donating blood plasma for the Covid-19 treatment of one of the friend’s family members.

Delhi Police have arrested a 23-year-old man who allegedly duped Delhi assembly speaker Ram Niwas Goel and a friend on the pretext of donating blood plasma for the Covid-19 treatment of one of the friend’s family members.

Police said the man targeted those looking for plasma donors on social media. (File photo for representation)

Police said the man targeted those looking for plasma donors on social media. He would claim to be a doctor who recently recovered from Covid-19, offer to donate blood plasma, and ask people for money to be transferred into his account for travel expenses. Once he got the money, he would be untraceable.

The accused has been identified as Abdul Karim Rana, a resident of Pul Prahladpur in south-east Delhi, police said. The amount in the incident involving the Speaker was Rs 950.

Police added that Rana confessed to cheating several people for petty cash using the same modus operandi soon after the national lockdown was imposed in March.

“The forgery in terms of money may not be big, but the suffering that the patient had to face is what bothered us. When the man assured us that he will donate plasma, we were satisfied that we’ve got a donor, unaware of his real motives. I would advise people that they should be aware of such fraudsters and be extra cautious when dealing with such a situation,” Goel said.

These days several people are looking for plasma donors for the treatment of their friends or family members, and “anyone manipulating such a situation in an illegal manner for his personal benefits, must face action”, he added.

Goel filed a written complaint in the Civil Lines police station on June 20, detailing the sequence of events. “In his complaint, the Speaker said that his nephew had sought help in a social media post for the treatment of his father-in-law, and a person called Rahul Thakur contacted him. Thakur claimed that he was a doctor from Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) hospital, and told Goel’s nephew that he recently recovered from Covid-19. In the meantime, however, Goel’s nephew got another plasma donor,” said a police officer who asked not to be named.

But, on June 19, when one of Goel’s friends was looking for a plasma donor for his father, who was admitted to a hospital in Gurugram, the name of Thakur, supposedly a doctor from RML, came up, the officer said. “When his nephew told him about Rahul Thakur, Goel contacted the man, who asked for Rs 450 as travel expenses to meet them in the hospital. The money was transferred to the account number given by Thakur,” the officer added.

According to the police, Thakur later called Goel and said he did not receive the money, and had another Rs 500 transferred to his account by the friend. “After receiving Rs 950, Thakur could not be contacted,” the officer said.

Deputy commissioner of police (north) Monika Bhardwaj, said the details of the mobile phone numbers given by the accused showed that they belonged to Abdul Karim Rana, a native of Muzaffarnagar, who lived in south-east Delhi’s Pul Prahladpur. “His address was identified and he was arrested from his house,” Bhardwaj said.

During interrogation, Rana said he made got fake identity cards made in the name of Rahul Thakur. Police said Rana’s bank accounts and mobile phone data were being examined.