Twin seats of crime removed from outside Dadar police chowky

Mumbai police removed two benches fixed in front of the beat chowky outside the railway station in Dadar East. While the twin seats, and the area around them, had evolved as a busy social spot in the neighbourhood, it was also a space where many dubious plots were hatched

Mumbai : As part of one of its crime prevention drives, Mumbai police recently removed two benches fixed in front of the beat chowky outside the railway station in Dadar East. While the twin seats, and the area around them, had evolved as a busy social spot in the neighbourhood, it was also a space where, according to the department, many dubious plots were hatched.

Twin seats of crime removed from outside Dadar police chowky

It became convenient for fraudsters to prey on unsuspecting people who would converge here regularly for small chats. The entry to the chowky is now sparse, after the seats were removed in October by the Matunga police. Alongside, police has also increased vigilance on the stretch between the Swaminarayan temple till Pritam da Dhabha, which had become the hub of crime.

An officer from Matunga police station said as the area connects both eastern and western suburbs by the local railway network, “it is easy for conmen to plan multiple meetings in a single day; the beat chowky is an easy-to-locate landmark right outside the station”.

It is here that Borivali-based hotelier Prashant Navinchandra Jain, 39, met a man named Sonu to buy an iPhone and an Apple watch at a combined discounted price of ₹71,000, on January 2. Jain was assured that the goods were genuine and priced at ₹1.50 lakh in the retail market. He paid the fraud ₹30,000 in cash and transferred ₹41,000 through GPay, took the products and went home. Later, when he found them to be suspicious, he dropped by at an iStore for a second opinion on his purchases, only to realise he was duped.

Jain approached Matunga police that booked and later arrested Sonu from Uttar Pradesh.

Before this, in December of 2022, Kunal Bhansali, 27, who runs a dry fruit shop in Prabhadevi, was allegedly duped of ₹25,200 by an unknown person. The victim claimed that a buyer, not known to him, visited his shop with a 20-kg order of cashew nuts and five kgs of kaju katli. The goods were to be delivered outside the beat chowki. The delivery was made on a designated day at the spot and the unidentified person gave him a cheque of the desired amount. The cheque bounced and the phone number left by the accused was unreachable.

In April, a 50-year-old woman met a man who identified himself as Shiran Shah on the benches. The two had contacted each other on a matrimony website, where he also promised to get a job for her younger brother. After chatting briefly, the two walked to a nearby eatery for a cup of tea. Soon after settling in, he asked for her phone saying his own device had run out of battery. He walked out casually, while speaking on the phone and did not return. After 30 minutes, the woman paid the restaurant bill and approached the police station to register a case of cheating against him.

The cheats were known to carry out their business with impunity uncaring of law enforcers close by. They mingled effortlessly within the crowd of regular people who dropped by.

“Over the past one year, we have registered several FIRs of cons that took place on these benches,” said the officer. As the cases escalated, police thought that it was judicious to remove the benches and simply keep a close watch on people frequenting the space.

The two benches were stationed here for the convenience of police and public who needed to coordinate over cases. “But sometimes when pedestrians used the space to take a break or to meet someone for five to ten minutes, we would not object,” he said. “It was beyond our imagination that the beat chowki would become a point for fraudulent activity.”