2 women paraded naked in Faridabad village on Holi

Palghar, Mar 7: Police have arrested a man for allegedly cheating several shopkeepers in Maharashtra's Thane, Pune and Nashik by making phone calls in a woman's voice, police said on Friday.

The accused, Shashikant Ambekar (42), a resident of Palghar, was arrested in the last week of February, they said.

"He used to note down the phone numbers mentioned on different shops and call the owners in a woman's voice to order some things from them. He would tell them that he had a Rs 2000 currency note and needed change," an official said.

"He would ask the shopkeepers to send smaller denomination notes for exchange. He would wait at the entrance of buildings and when the delivery man arrived, he used to tell that he was there on behalf of the ''caller woman''.

"He would then take the currency notes from the delivery man saying he would get the Rs 2,000 note from the woman. However, he would disappear from the scene," the official said.

Police have seized Rs 1,85,000 from the accused and found that so far he has committed 22 similar crimes in different parts of the state.

Tamil Nadu, Jul 12: An alleged attempt by a 19-year-old man to "open a branch of the State Bank of India" at Panruti near Tamil Nadu was scuttled and he was arrested for forgery, police said on Saturday.

The man, son of retired SBI employees, had readied fake seals and challans of the public sector lender, and had other paraphernalia like a cash counting machine needed "to run a bank branch," on an upper floor of his residence at Panruti, about 25 km from Tamil Nadu.

He had not, however, put up any signboard. The SBI Panruti branch manager lodged a complaint with police seeking action following a tip-off by a customer that the man was "opening an SBI branch and has challans as well."

A printer who printed the challans and another who had made fake seals were held for similar offences and abetment.

They were produced before a magistrate court and enlarged on bail.

Asked if the man had cheated people by soliciting deposits or facilitating loans, Panruti police inspector K Ambethkar said, "no..we have not received any such complaint so far."

The man's late father had worked for SBI and his mother had retired from the same bank some time back, he said.

To a question, the police inspector said the man's mother, who has mobility issues, and another woman a relative living in the same house had no clue about his "idea."

Investigations revealed that he aspired to work for a bank and since he had closely watched banking operations for long he was "very knowledgeable" about it.

On the suspected motive, he said several of his replies were incomprehensible, childish, and strange notwithstanding his excellent understanding of the banking processes.

"He even calmly told us that he awaited approval from Mumbai to open the (SBI) branch and that he was about to put up a signboard," the inspector said, adding that the man had tried unsuccessfully to get employment on compassionate grounds in the SBI following the death of his father in harness.

Unnao, Jan 3: The Uttar Pradesh Police has submitted a charge sheet in a court here in connection with the death of a 23-year-old Unnao rape victim, who was allegedly set ablaze by five men.

Additional Superintendent of Police Vinod Kumar Pandey, who is heading a Special Investigation Team in the case, said the charge sheet was submitted on Wednesday.

"There is ample proof against the five accused persons, and the charge sheet was prepared based on those evidences," he said on Thursday.

The 23-year-old Unnao rape victim, who was airlifted to Delhi and admitted to Safdarjung Hospital with 90 per cent burns after being set on fire, died following a cardiac arrest on December 6, 2019.

The woman was set afire by five men, including two of her alleged rapists, on December 5 morning when she was going to Rae Bareli to attend a court hearing in the rape case filed by her.

In her statement to Sub Divisional Magistrate Dayashankar Pathak, the woman had said she was attacked when she reached Gaura turn near her home on her way to the court.

She had specifically named Harishankar Trivedi, Ram Kishore Trivedi, Umesh Bajpai, Shivam Trivedi and Shubham Trivedi as the persons who set her on fire.

The woman had also alleged that Shivam and Shubham Trivedi had abducted and raped her in December 2018.