Couple conned into paying up by man posing as cop

By Nabeel A. Khan

New Delhi, Nov 30 (IANS) A media professional who paid a telephone bill after being threatened with arrest by a man posing as a policemen is seeking justice from the police. The company has denied any wrongdoing.The police said they were investigating the case.
Prasoon Srivastava's wife Rashi, both residents of Malviya Nagar in south Delhi, said she got a telephone call Nov 26 from a man claiming to be an officer with the Mandawali police station.

"The person introduced himself as Devendra Wasim, a sub-inspector. He said an FIR (first information report) had been registered against my husband as he had not paid the bill due to Tata Teleservices," she said.

The caller gave the woman a number of a purported lawyer for the company who insisted that an arrest warrant had indeed been issued and it could be scrapped if the bill of Rs.7,205 was paid up.

"On my wife's insistence, I deposited the amount," said Prasoon Srivastava, adding he had stopped paying the company's bills for some months after complaining unsuccessfully about poor service.

When Srivastava called the Mandawali police station, he realised that they had no one named Wasim.

But the police said they had received many such complaints from people related to a Wasim claiming to be a police officer.

On Nov 27, Srivastava filed a complaint with the Malviya Nagar police station. Jarnail Singh, its station house officer, said: "We have received the complaint and our investigation is on."
Tata Teleservices denied any knowledge of the incident.

"As we have not been communicated by any investigating official on this matter so far, we would not be able to comment," its spokesperson said.

"We would like to clarify that we don't indulge in any such practices and request you to provide us the details of the person involved so that we can look into the matter and take action." Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat admitted that such practices were widespread in the city.

"We get a number of such complaints where people impersonating as policemen threaten people and try to extort money from them. We have also registered a number of cases," he said. "We have been sensitizing people about this through advertisements and on our website. We have also a dedicated helpline (1090) for such cases where anyone can register his or her grievances," Bhagat told IANS.

On July 22, Delhi Police arrested seven men who worked for a multinational bank. They posed as policemen and lawyers to threaten customers to pay up their dues.

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