The Marine Drive police have booked two persons for allegedly duping a 37-year-old electrical engineer from Gujarat on the pretext of providing the victim with a state government contract for his e-challan mobile software. Police said that one of the accused posed as a personal assistant to former home minister Dilip Walse-Patil and took Rs 2.38 lakh from the victim. According to police, the complainant had developed an e-challan mobile software for the traffic police and wanted to bag a contract from the Mumbai traffic police. He came to Mumbai and met a social worker near Mira Road in December 2021. The social worker introduced the man to one Prashant Navghare in January 2022, who had claimed to be a personal assistant to the then home minister Walse-Patil. "He met him at Mantralaya, and promised to help him get a contract. Subsequently, he demanded Rs 6 lakh for the job and asked him to get his company registered," said an officer, on the condition of anonymity. In February 2022, Navghare introduced the complainant to his accomplice Nitesh Savdekar — introduced as a cyber security officer — who was supposed to grant permission for his application. In the next three months, the two accused allegedly made the complainant pay Rs 2.38 lakh fraudulently, and in a bid to gain his trust, also sent him a work order on WhatsApp. When the victim realised that the work order was fabricated, he demanded his money back; and Navghare gave him a cheque of Rs 2.38 lakh, which got bounced. Later, Navghare allegedly told the victim that he had distributed the money to different people and will only be able to return it after he gets it back, so the complainant filed a complaint at the Marine Drive police station.
