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Police on lookout for ‘Mr Natwarlal’ who duped many posing as govt official
A joint team of Nagaon and Guwahati police raided Neog’s house in Guwahati on Saturday. Though they recovered many incriminating documents and material, the conman managed to give a slip to the police team
Police in Assam are on the lookout for a fraudster who has reportedly duped many persons in past years posing as a senior government official.
In his early 30s, Mridupaban Neog is believed to have been active for some time but police in Nagaon district came to know about his activities last week after a car dealer filed an FIR alleging he cheated him of ₹31 lakhs.
“Our investigation against this person has been going in the right track and you will get positive results soon,” Assam director general of police Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta told journalists on Sunday.
Based on the FIR lodged under several IPC (Indian Penal Code) sections for cheating, criminal breach of trust, impersonating public servant and criminal intimidation, a joint team of Nagaon and Guwahati police raided Neog’s house in Guwahati on Saturday. Though they recovered many incriminating documents and material, the conman managed to give a slip to the police team.
Besides two luxury vehicles, police found a .32 pistol, 20 live rounds, many letter pads in the name of the accused with the Government of India insignia, several identity cards with different designations, many bottles of expensive liquor, gold jewellery worth several lakhs, logo of a media house etc.
“This man is like the Hindi movie character Mr Natwarlal, a fraud with different identities. He finds rich and gullible people and tricks them into parting with large sums of money using different means,” said Anand Kumar Mishra, Nagaon superintendent of police.
“Once people start asking him to return their money, he threatens them by showing his so-called connections with top shots. In the present case, he took ₹31 lakhs from the complainant saying he’s a senior ministry of home affairs official and needed to sell his Fortuner SUV as he needed the money urgently,” he added.
When Neog failed to deliver the vehicle after two months, the complainant approached the police. A little bit of digging up by the police revealed that Neog had duped several others.
“He would pose with celebrities, bureaucrats, politicians and ministers and post those photos on social media, claiming closeness to these persons. Lot of people believed his claims and became victims,” said Mishra.
“Sometimes he would say he’s a Central government official, at other times he would say he’s a civil servant from Assam. He would also claim to be senior journalist, if required,” he added.
Neog is reported to have studied till Class 10. A Twitter account in his name shows him shaking hands with governor of Assam Jagdish Mukhi. HT couldn’t verify the authenticity of the account or the photo. Police have arrested a private security guard employed by Neog and are questioning him.
“Lots of people in Assam’s corridors of power seemed to be aware of Neog’s activities. But it is only now that some of those cheated by him have started coming forward,” said Mishra.
On Saturday, the all women police station at Panbazar in Guwahati lodged another complaint against Neog following a complaint by a woman about receiving threatening calls from a phone number apparently belonging to Neog.
