Pune: Shivajinagar police detained two men — a mobile phone gallery owner and an employee of a loan recovery agency — for allegedly threatening a techie and demanding immediate payment of his outstanding credit card dues of Rs 1.6 lakh while posing as a police constable.
The techie (26), who runs a software company in Shivajinagar, is a resident of Keshavnagar. The techie alleged that a fraudster posing as a police constable repeatedly harassed him over credit card dues of Rs 1.6 lakh between Oct 13 and 19. The two were released after police recorded their statements.
“Earlier, we had registered a case of impersonation, but we have now invoked charges of cheating and provisions of the IT Act against them,” said senior inspector Girish Dighavkar of Shivajinagar police station. He told us that he had given SIM cards to his friend, who runs a loan recovery agency. He lodged a complaint with the police after receiving repeated threatening calls from a suspect posing as a police constable during video calls and using a profile picture showing himself in uniform. The harassment included video calls during which the caller appeared in a police uniform. “We tracked down the SIM card owner, who turned out to be a mobile phone gallery owner from Market Yard.
“We have served notices to them asking to cooperate with the investigation,” he said.