Nagpur: Drawing inspiration straight from the plot of movie Special 26 in which bogus IT officials conduct fake raids to rob away the rich and wealthy, a gang robbed two traders in similar fashion. However the gang, masterminded by Maulana of a mosque in Teka Naka could not run far from police.
City police’s crime branch have arrested four persons to bust a bogus Income Tax officers’ gang, detecting the Rs45 lakh dacoity case which had taken place on December 9. Those arrested include the mastermind, a maulana of a local mosque at Teka Naka in north Nagpur, identified as Mohd Shehzad alias Mulla.
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The police have also recovered more than Rs23.75 lakh cash which the gang had stashed in an empty water tank after robbing two traders, Anuj and Vineet Agrawal, at the residence of Shehzad at Teka Naka where the incident had taken place. The gang had lured Agrawal traders, who are cousins, to give them Rs four lakh commission to change their denotified currency worth Rs50 lakh. The Agrawal brothers and their broker Kushal Mookhey, also now under scanner, had to pay Rs46 lakh in new notes in exchange of Rs50 lakh to Shehzad and others.
During the exchange of currencies, Shehzad’s accomplices, Shehbaza Sheikh (26), Dost Mohammad alias Baba (48) and Yunus Ahmad Nazir Ahmad, posing as Income Tax officers, had decamped with the cash. The trio decamped with Shehzad and his another close aide Moiz Khan alias Monu. The gang, except Yunus, was nabbed from Tumsar in Bhandara district, following a tip-off.
The gang, after stashing one of the bags having new notes in the water tank, sneaked away to Hyderabad. En route, they disposed off their mobile phones after switching them off, making the task of tracing them difficult. From Hyderabad, the accused flew to Delhi. They then moved to Madhya Pradesh.
DCP, detection, Ranjan Kumar Sharma said during a press conference the gang had presumed that the Agrawals may not report the incident to the police, but their prediction failed as the victims registered an offence at Pachpaoli police station.
It has been also reliably learnt that the gang may have been behind several such incidents. Maulana’s kin, a constable at police headquarters, also learnt to have helped cops bust the gang.
