Mumbai: The Mumbai Crime Branch has arrested a 41-year-old man on Saturday for allegedly posing as the private secretary to the Union minister of home affairs and cooperation and calling police officers to influence cases, including lodging FIRs or seeking relief for accused persons.
The accused, Mohammad Tariq Pathan, a resident of Khed in Ratnagiri, was arrested from a hotel near APMC Market in Vashi.
“We are questioning him to find his exact style of cheating,” said a police officer. Investigators are also trying to ascertain how many cases he influenced and how much money he collected from people.
Police said Pathan allegedly posed as Pawankumar Yadav, private secretary to Union home minister Amit Shah, and contacted senior police officers seeking favours in criminal cases.
According to police, he would purchase new SIM cards and save the number in another phone under the name “PS to MHA” to make the calls appear genuine before contacting senior police officers.
In one such incident on March 1, Pathan allegedly called a police officer from Connaught Place police station in Delhi, who had come to Grant Road to serve a warrant on a woman. Police sources said the officer was first told he would receive a call from an influential person and later received a call from Pathan posing as the minister’s aide, asking him not to trouble the woman.
Crime branch officials said Pathan is suspected of making several such calls to police officers and allegedly collected money from people for facilitating such interventions.
“He kept changing mobile phones and purchased them in other people’s names from various states, promising them money and claiming it is required by senior officers,” said a police officer.
A case has been registered against Pathan under sections related to cheating, impersonation of a public servant and criminal conspiracy under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, along with Section 66D of the Information Technology Act for cheating by personation using computer resources.
Pathan was produced before a court, which remanded him to police custody till March 10.
