The Kamothe police are on lookout for a couple who cheated a retired Mantralaya official of ₹23 lakh.
In his complaint, Bhaskar Chichulkar (62), who retired in 2017 as section officer at the Mantralaya’s Central Director General Office, said a relative introduced him to the accused, Praveen Kamble, in 2018. Mr. Kamble claimed to be an assistant police officer at Taloja jail.
The accused said he ran a business with his wife Sunita Kamble of providing essential goods to canteens at Thane and Kalyan jails.
Mr. Chichulkar paid the accused ₹23 lakh after he promised to get him the tenders to supply bottled water, grains and dry snacks to the canteens. In July 2018, Mr. Chichulkar rented a shop near Thane jail and started providing bottled water to Mr. Kamble’s firm, which supplied it to Thane jail.
In November 2018, Mr. Kamble stopped taking bottled water from Mr. Chichulkar and said a new tender for providing supplies to Thane jail’s canteen would be floated the next month.
Later, when Mr. Kamble started ignoring his calls, Mr. Chichulkar visited his house in Kharghar, but found that the couple had moved out. He learnt that Mr. Kamble’s parents lived in Nerul, but they were not in touch with the accused.
“Prima facie, we have learnt that Mr.Kamble was not associated with Taloja jail. We are verifying if he worked in the police department. The couple is yet to be arrested,” police inspector Vimal Bidave said.
