26-year-old arrested for impersonating BJP leader Ashish Shelar’s PA

Mumbai: The Bandra police on Friday arrested a 26-year-old man for allegedly impersonating the personal assistant (PA) of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and legislator Ashish Shelar and subsequently cheating many persons. The case was registered by Shelar’s personal assistant, Navnath Satpute on Friday.
According to the Bandra police, the accused, Amin Irfan Bendrekar, called a lawyer and a family member of an inmate and demanded ₹8,000, claiming that he had a fall and sustained serious injuries and needed the money for his medical treatment. He told the family member that the amount would be refunded once the State government sanctioned the grant as the jail authorities lacked funds.
Similarly, he called another lawyer claiming that he was calling from Mantralaya and claimed that due to the overcrowding in the state prison, they were planning to release a few criminals, and his client was on the list and needed the contact details of their family to verify some things.
Satpute told the police that several lawyers had been getting such calls from a man who called himself ‘Sharma’ and posed as the PA of Shelar and that their clients could obtain freedom under a scheme floated by the State Government if they co-operated in giving details of their client’s family.
Based on Satpute’s complaint on Friday, DCP (Zone 9), Raj Tilak Roshan, had set up a team that tracked the accused from Nalasopara and arrested him.
“The accused after gaining the clients’ details, used to call the family members and extract money by saying that their loved one in jail had hurt himself due to fights or space crush and get the money,” said a police officer from Bandra police station. Satpute found out about the fraud when the lawyer received a call from the criminals’ family member Informing them about the transfer of ₹8,000 to Shelar’s PA.
The police are now investigating to find out the total number of people the accused has duped impersonating as Shelar’s PA.