Man booked for using Ashish Shelar’s name to dupe job aspirants

A case has been registered under a slew of sections, including Section 420 (cheating), against the accused identified as Subhash Sarban.

Mumbai: A case of cheating has been registered against a person for using BJP MLA and the party’s state unit president Ashish Shelar’s name to make false promises of jobs in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and demand ₹4 lakh from each aspirant.

The scam came to light when one of Shelar’s acquaintances, Shraddha Dalvi, stumbled upon it on a social media platform and investigated the matter. And once she was convinced that it was a case of cheating, she informed the MLA about it. (HT PHOTO)

A case has been registered under a slew of sections, including Section 420 (cheating), against the accused identified as Subhash Sarban.

The scam came to light when one of Shelar’s acquaintances, Shraddha Dalvi, stumbled upon it on a social media platform and investigated the matter. And once she was convinced that it was a case of cheating, she informed the MLA about it.

Shelar said that he filed the complaint as soon as he came to know about the fraud. “I was informed by a person that someone has promised a job in the BMC in my name. He also sought money from the concerned family on the pretext that he will have to pay me for the favour following which, I filed a complaint with the police today itself,” Shelar told HT.

According to the police, Dalvi came to know about this racket through an advertisement in Facebook announcing job vacancies in BMC. The advertisement said, “Ward boys and office staff jobs salary ₹27,000 to ₹29,500. Also, WhatsApp for government jobs,” and gave a contact number. Dalvi called the number and reached a person, who identified himself as Sarban.

A police officer said, “Sarban told Dalvi that he was speaking from BMC headquarters and has been helping candidates get jobs in the civic body. He told her that he charges ₹ 4 lakh per candidate and takes ₹1 lakh in advance and the rest after the work is done.

“Sarban told Dalvi that he does this work through Shelar, who has good contacts in the civic body.” Dalvi grew suspicious that Sarban was misusing Shelar’s name for his personal gains and informed the MLA about it, added the police.

“We have registered a case against Sarban under Section 420 cheating, Section 419 (punishments for cheating by personation), Section 511 (punishments for attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonment of the Indian Penal Code) and under Section 66D of the Information Technology Act, 2000 for personation using computer resources,” the police officer said.