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Lucknow on edge with fake cops on the prowl
Con men never let an opportunity pass to cheat the gullible, any time, anywhere. And if the crooks are super slick, they unabashedly try police impersonation to cheat people, especially the elderly.
Con men never let an opportunity pass to cheat the gullible, any time, anywhere. And if the crooks are super slick, they unabashedly try police impersonation to cheat people, especially the elderly.
On January 23, when a teacher Chitra Mehrotra was approached by ‘two men in khaki’ who warned her she might get robbed, she took them to be neighbourhood friendly cops. Little did she know that on the pretext of helping her they would dupe her of her jewellery.
Con men posing as cops and cheating people of valuables have returned to hound the city streets this winter. This is nearly seven months after several such incidents were reported in the state capital last winter.
Despite efforts, the police seem to have drawn a blank and failed to arrest the culprits.
Police sources said that many such incidents were not even reported due to various reasons. Police records show at least six incidents of ‘imposter cops’, some who even donned the uniform, taking away cash and valuables from city residents, usually elderly women, in the name of frisking and checking over the past two months.
A senior officer of the Special Task Force (STF) said the trend was reported from November 2017 till March 2018 when fake cops duped a number of gullible people on the streets.
He said the imposters pretended that they were patrolling the area and asked people, mostly elderly women, to remove their jewellery and keep it in their bag as miscreants were on the prowl and could rob them. He said elderly people often got trapped and the jewellery went missing in the process of being transferred to the bag.
“An incident was reported from South City in which two people posing as policemen approached a lawyer’s mother when she was returning from the market,” said inspector of PGI police station, Vikas Pandey.
“However, the woman was alert after reading news of similar crimes in newspapers and approached other passers-by, after which the fraudsters vanished”.
In yet another incident, two crooks posing as cops duped a youth near Munshipulia crossing in Indira Nagar on January 18.
This winter, stray incidents were reported since October 2018 but the trend picked up since November.
On November 26, two elderly women Shobha Devi, 63, and Mithilesh Yadav, 59, were duped of their jewellery in separate incidents on the same stretch between Manoj Pandey crossing to Mithaiwala crossing in Gomti Nagar within 20 minutes.
Shobha Devi was duped barely 150 metres from Manoj Pandey crossing while Mithilesh Devi was duped near Mithaiwala crossing, barely 800 metres from the first crime spot.
CITY’S BIGGEST GOLD MARKET TOO HOUNDED
Officer-bearer of Chowk Jewellers’ Association Vinod Maheshwari said three incidents of fake policemen duping visitors in the name of frisking and checking had taken place in the Chowk jewellers’ market in the past two months. He said the fraudsters took away 200 grams and 250 grams gold respectively from two small time jewellers in the two incidents and ₹50,000 from a buyer but they did not register police complaints due to unknown reasons.
He said the association had demanded that Chowk circle officer DP Tewari intensify patrolling and regular checking of suspicious people in the market to avert such incidents.
