Mumbai: Police have filed a case of extortion and impersonation against a Central Railway employee and a civil engineer for allegedly trying to extort Rs 10,000 from an Andheri resident who owns a dairy and a paan shop on August 2.“Two men drove to Shivsing Balla’s paan shop in an SUV and flashed a fake police constable’s ID card at his son. They showed him a video claiming that they have evidence of him selling gutka illegally and demanded Rs 10,000. The son called up Balla, who rushed to the pan shop and alerted Andheri police,” said an officer.Balla said he suspected that the two men were not cops because when he spoke with them in Marathi, they replied in Hindi. As sub-inspector Rohan Surve and his team reached the spot, one of the accused, later identified as Gulabsingh Thakur (35), who is an AC coach inspection staffer with an office on platform no 14 at Dadar Central TT, managed to flee in the SUV. His accomplice, civil engineer Deepaksingh Thakur (33), was arrested on the spot.Gulabsingh drove to his Mira Road residence, abandoned the SUV, which belonged to his brother, and went into hiding.“During investigation, we found that Gulabsingh applied for leave on Aug 3 after informing his senior, Yogeshkumar Meena, that his grandmother had passed away and he urgently had to travel to his native village in Uttar Pradesh,” said a police officer. “During inquiry it was found that the constable whose ID was misused was known to the accused. We suspect that they scanned his police ID card and made a fake one.”DCP (West Zone-3) Datta Nalawade has formed a team comprising senior inspector Umesh Machinder, sub-inspector Surve and staff to track down Gulabsingh in UP. Deepaksingh was granted bail on August 11.
