Four individuals posing as Delhi police officers have been arrested for allegedly targeting college students, accusing them of operating a fake call center, and conducting a fraudulent raid at their homes in West Delhi. During this raid, the imposters confiscated ₹1.55 lakh (approximately $1,825) in cash and subjected the victims to humiliating treatment.
Police arrested the four accused-Manpreet Singh, 29, Junaid Wasid, 23, Kuldeep Singh, 22, and Sarabjeet Singh alias Prince, 22-on December 17. All the accused belong to West Delhi and were booked for robbery and intent to cause grievous hurt or death.
The fake raid took place on December 10 and lasted for almost four hours at the students’ flat. The victims were made to sit in a submissive position, photographed holding a gun, and ordered to lock themselves inside their homes.
The six victims, Kunj Salve, Mohammad Areebul Hasan, Aditya Kumar Verma, Lovpreet Singh, Aditya Vaswani, and Sujanya Gupta, all from Delhi University, were found to have no involvement in any call center scam.
According to Salve’s complaint, the whole thing started when three men came up to him and Vaswani and said that they had videos of the two men running the fake call centre. On December 10, at around 9:30 PM, the three men introduced themselves as police officers and were joined by an accomplice.
Although students had identified themselves with college identities and denied the commission of the crime, the impostors forcibly snatched away mobile phones of the students and dragged them to their flat, apparently for a search. Then, the students were pinned, manhandled, and asked to hand over mobiles and laptops.
Following the rape, the fraudsters insisted for a bribe of ₹25 lakh – approx. $29,440 to not lodge complaints and lodge cases against the students with police; when the students denied agreeing to pay, they pointed a gun at the victim girls. The con artist managed to collect close to ₹23,000 -approximately $270 cash and withdrew close to ₹1.32 lakh – approx 1,554 using students Debit cards.
Police tracked down the suspects using their phone numbers. Deputy Commissioner of Police Vichitra Veer confirmed the recovery of ₹1 lakh (approximately $1,177) of the stolen money, the vehicle used in the crime, and the firearm. “All suspects were identified through a combination of technical and manual investigations, and efforts are underway to apprehend the individual who supplied the firearm,” he stated.
