BHOPAL: Cops in Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh are probing the case of a man posing as MP Governor Lalji Tandon calling three BJP MLAs over the phone and asking them to deposit lakhs of rupees in a bank account.
According to Sagar district police superintendent Amit Sanghi, the calls were made on Monday from a mobile number registered in Odisha. The calls to the three BJP MLAs, including Pradip Lariya (Naryoli), Mahesh Rai (Bina) and Shailendra Jain (Sagar) were made from the same phone number between 12 noon and 2 pm.
“The caller who posed as the state’s Governor asked the three legislators to deposit sums ranging between Rs 5 lakh to Rs 7 lakh in a bank account. After being informed about the incident, we’ve registered a case of impersonation under Section 419 of the IPC and investigations are underway,” said Sanghi.
The cell phone number is registered in Odisha, but as per the ongoing probe, the calls to the BJP legislators were made from another state, informed sources told The New Indian Express on Tuesday.
While the three BJP MLAs have confirmed to the police that they received the calls from someone posing as the MP Governor, a similar phone call is believed to have been made to another senior BJP leader of the same Bundelkhand region in which Sagar district lies.
Sources connected to the police probe in the case confided that the possibility of someone linked to Sagar district having made or masterminded the calls cannot be ruled out.
More than a month ago, two men, including Bhopal-based dental surgeon Dr Chandresh Shukla and IAF officer Kuldip Vaghela, were arrested by the Madhya Pradesh Police's Special Task Force from Bhopal and Delhi respectively for trying to dupe MP Governor Lalji Tandon. The IAF officer made a call to Tandon posing as Union home minister Amit Shah, while the dental surgeon posed as the home minister’s personal assistant.
The call was made to facilitate Dr Chandresh Shukla’s appointment as the Vice-Chancellor of Madhya Pradesh Medical Science University (MPMSU-Jabalpur).