A teenager from Mira Road near Mumbai was confined to prison for 18 extra days due to a “typing error” made by police in its remand application. The police admitted to the error and said it was later rectified. Sources said Adil Siraj Saheb, an accused in the IRS call centre scam, had to spend 18 extra days at Taloja Central Prison since the remand plea wrongly identified him as an ‘instructor’ at one of the call centres. Adil was actually a ‘closer’ who would just make or receive calls. On January 9, when a sessions court in Thane granted bail to 22 other ‘closers’, it declined Adil’s bail plea, saying that he had been named as an ‘instructor’ in some of the documents presented before the court. Watch What Else is Making News It was only on January 27, when the public prosecutor admitted in court that Adil had been wrongly mentioned as an ‘instructor’, that he was granted bail. On October 5, Thane police arrested nearly 80 people after raids on six call centres where the accused allegedly made fraudulent calls to US citizens, pretending to be calling from the Internal Revenue Service and asking for money to settle pending tax disputes. Adil’s father Siraj told The Indian Express, “There was an error at some level. The court said our son was an instructor, which was not the case. We then approached the police.” ACP Mukund Hatote, an investigating officer, said: “There had been a typing error in one of the documents presented before the court while seeking his remand. However, we later rectified that and in all other documents, including the chargesheet, his role has been mentioned as closer.”
