Emulating Bollywood drama ‘Special 26’, a gang of six posing as CBI officers raided a distillery in Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh recently and decamped after ‘seizing’ Rs 2 lakh from the victims.
The gang was busted by the police recently. On August 6, six men landed at the office of Jack Pin Breweries Limited in Naugaon town in Chhatrapur at around 8am.
Riding luxury vehicles, the visitors identified themselves as CBI officers claiming that they had arrived there for probing an old hooch case took place in Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh last year.
In the filmy style, the visitors ordered the security guards to line up in front up of them and warned them to stay there till the enquiry was over. Giving a real look to their team, two of the visitors were clad in police uniform carrying pistols in their holsters.
The owner of the premises, Nikhik Bansal panicked and asked why the action was taken against him. One of the visitors posing as CBI sub inspector shouted that summons were sent to him but he did not appear for questioning.
As Bansal sought a copy of the summon, another officer promptly said that they will take Bansal to Lucknow for further action. A terrified Bansal pleaded that they don’t make supplies to Aligarh or anywhere in UP which was around 500km from their plant, so how come they are connected to the said incident. He also claimed that they run a registered unit which complies with the norms.
Afterwards, an officer posing as sub inspector took him to a corner and claimed that he can get the matter settled. However, Bansal managed to stand his ground and one of the men posing as Additional SP whisked out a pistol and put it on the chest of plant manager Rajiv Mittal. He started searching office drawers and took out Rs 2 lakh kept there.
As they left, they took away the DVR of the CCTV camera with them.
Later, Bansal approached the police and lodged a complaint. Police had lodged a case against unknown persons under sections 395, 419, 420 and 170 of the Indian Penal Code (IPc).
Several teams were formed which arrested the accused from the forests of Mahu Sahania, said Superintendent of Police Sachin Sharma. The arrested men include - Dharmendra Valmiki of Bulandshahar, Devendra Julaha Delhi, Avinash Maurya Delhi, Siddhpal Bhadauria of Bhopal and Devendra Singh Jhansi. The police managed to recover two high-end SUVs, Rs 2 lakh, two pistols with 10 live bullets, three police uniforms, fake IDs, several forged documents and the looted DVR.
The gang confessed to police that they had drawn inspiration from Special 26 and the mastermind Siddhpal Bhadauria was so confident that he had spoken to SP Sachin Sharma after the incident.
“They had derived inspiration from Akshay Kumar starrer ‘Special 26’ and used the same modus operandi for the incident,” said the SP. Police are trying to probe if the gang also targeted others in the same manner.
(Inputs from Sunil Upadhyay)
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