BMC gets spoof email on non-payment of property tax; cops hunt for fraud

The complainant, Dinesh Wagh, 64, a businessman told the police that the accused wanted to create a misunderstanding between him and his friend Sanjay Naik. Wagh and Naik stay in the same building called Aradhna at the Guru Nanak Road in Bandra West

Mumbai: The police have launched a manhunt for an unidentified man who allegedly created a fake email using the address and phone number of a senior citizen to lodge a complaint against the latter’s friend for not paying property tax for his apartment since 2015 with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

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The complainant, Dinesh Wagh, 64, a businessman told the police that the accused wanted to create a misunderstanding between him and his friend Sanjay Naik.

Wagh and Naik stay in the same building called Aradhna at the Guru Nanak Road in Bandra West. Wagh spends some months in Nashik in a year before returning to Mumbai. According to the police officers, on September 5, when Wagh was in Nashik, an officer from the BMC’s H/West ward’s tax department called him and informed him that the BMC had received a complaint from his email stating that his friend Naik had not paid property tax on one of his apartments and was using another apartment in the same building for commercial purposes since 2015. Wagh was shocked as he had sent no email to BMC. He clarified that the email ID was not his and that someone had maliciously created a fake email ID with his phone number and address to send the complaint against his friend. Subsequently, Wagh received a call from Nayak inquiring whether he had sent an email to the BMC, to which Wagh clarified the misunderstanding and added that he had already communicated to the BMC about the fake email ID. A case was registered for impersonation and giving false information under sections 182, 419, 465, 468, and 501 of the Indian Penal Code and 66 C of the Information Technology Act.

“We are tracing the IP address of the computer through which the email was created and sent,” said a police officer from Bandra police station.