Gujarat in the Grip of Imposters, another arrested

Junagadh : Gujarat appears to be grappling with a surge of imposters as yet another fake official, masquerading as a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP), has been apprehended by Junagadh police.

This arrest follows a series of fake officials cropping up across the state, including a bogus office in Chhotaudepur, impostors from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), a counterfeit Personal Assistant to the Minister of State for Home, and even a fraudulent MLA.

Vinit Dave, posing as a DySP, has been accused of deceiving 17 individuals in the state, extorting a staggering sum exceeding Rs 2 crore from them. Upon his arrest, police recovered various duplicate identity cards, including those for DySP Junagadh, a fake driver ID from the family court, and a counterfeit ID for the Principal Senior Civil Judge of Junagadh.

Furthermore, multiple debit cards from different banks were seized, alongside IDs under the names Ankitsinh Rajput and Kanaksinh Rajput, the latter posing as a police constable with the Patan police.

Sources within the Junagadh police revealed Dave’s simple yet effective modus operandi. He preyed on desperate youths seeking government jobs, gaining their trust before assessing their financial status.

Leveraging his purported government connections, he lured victims with promises of securing employment, demanding cash as an advance bribe purportedly required to pay off officials in Gandhinagar. Dave went as far as fabricating fake interview letters to deceive the hopeful youths. Operating primarily in Junagadh, Gir-Somnath, and Rajkot districts, he defrauded 17 individuals, extracting a total of Rs 2,11,50,000 through these fraudulent means.

The arrest of this imposter sheds light on a concerning trend of individuals exploiting aspirations for employment, raising alarm bells about the prevalence of such scams across Gujarat.