Mumbai Crime: One held in clean-up marshal scam, hunt on for 5 others

Bhushan Singh, one of the accused, had signed on the fake ID cards

The Charkop police have cracked a fake clean-up marshal scam with the arrest of a 35-year-old man. Apart from taking Bhushan Singh in custody, the cops have also booked five others for cheating and forgery. The malpractice came to light after a man bought a fake ID card from Bhushan last month but soon learnt that the suspects had never won a contract from the BMC. His tip triggered a hunt.

The police said a Bhayandar-based company, Sainik Intelligence and Security Pvt Ltd., had applied for a clean-up marshal contract in 2018. While the BMC awarded the contract to it, the company remained unaware of it.

Santosh Mohite, accounts manager of the company, told mid-day, "One of our accountants, Sushil Gholani, had filled a tender through Narayan Singh [one of the accused], but unfortunately, he died in November 2019 and no one from the company followed up on the tender."

Narayan took advantage of Gholani's death to keep the contract papers with himself. He roped in the other accused, now identified as Anil Singh, Sunil Gupta, Prashant Kamble and Ashok Satam, and they started operating in the name of "Sainik Intelligence". Narayan also gave out fake IDs for money. It is suspected that Narayan was working in connivance with a few BMC officials.

Also Read: Mumbai Crime: Six clean-up marshals turn criminals, held for extortion

Mohite said they filed a police complaint after learning about the fake contractor. "We were surprised that our tender had been accepted and we had got the contract. Whatever stamps and signatures used by the accused in the documents and ID cards were forged," he said.

An officer from Charkop police station said they questioned the company staff and found that it had never authorised the accused to operate as a clean-up agency. "The accused were misusing the contract in a fraudulent manner. The person who had issued the ID cards to the so-called marshals was not authorised to sign," said the officer.

All six have been booked under Section 420 (cheating) and other charges under the Indian Penal Code. "We are looking for those at large. We will arrest them soon," said the officer. A court on Saturday remanded Bhushan Singh in police custody. The police are yet to find out how many ‘marshals' had been engaged by the gang.

Activist Aatishkumar Tiwari said a scams of such nature raises question marks on the credibility of the BMC. He said, "Clean-up marshals are posted in every ward. It is the responsibility of ward officials to ensure that genuine people are doing the job. Now, it seems the BMC officials are too careless about clean-up marshals."