Fake woman ticket collector, bogus crime branch officials in net

PUNE: The Wanowrie police on Tuesday arrested three persons at Jhambulkar Chowk for impersonating crime branch officials, while a woman landed in cop net for posing as a bogus ticket examiner on a train on Sunday.
The trio arrested on Tuesday raided a betel shop selling gutka -a banned tobacco substance -to make fast bucks. The 28-ye ar-old woman, on the other hand, showed up as a train ticket examiner to teach fellow passengers in her compartment a lesson.
The Government Railway Police (GRP) arrested the woman, a resident of Dhole-Patil Road, for posing as a travelling ticket examiner on Mumbai-Nagarcoil Express on February 26 night.Sub-inspector Sangeeta Mali of GRP , Pune, said the incident occurred between Pune and Kuruduwadi stations. The arres ted woman allegedly demanded Rs100 as “bribe“ from ticketless passengers or asked them to pay a fine of Rs350 each.
The train's official ticket examiner, Kurudu wadi railway colony resident Sujitkumar Mahendra Sahu (27), lodged a complaint against the woman with the Kuruduwadi police station of GRP the same day after the hassled women passengers brought the incident to his notice. The case was transferred to the GRP's Pune railway station police station on Monday.
A city court on Wednesday remanded her in magisterial custody. The arrested woman is a homemaker and has two kids. Her husband is a cab driver. To support her family, she decided to take up studies. An external student of a university , she was going to Kuruduwadi for oral ex aminations with a valid ticket.She was studying in the ladies' compartment. Her fellow passengers kept chatting, distracting her. To teach them a lesson, she decided to pose as a ticket collector and extort money .
In Wanowrie, Atif Shaikh (26), Kashid Qureshi (30) and Salim Shaikh (22) from Ramtekdi in Hadapsar rode a bike to a betel shop in Jhambulkar Chowk around 11.30pm on Tuesday .
Atif, impersonating a cons table from the crime branch, showed the shop owner his identity card and told him that they had received information that he was selling gutka. The owner, suspecting something amiss, alerted the Wanowrie police, said sub-inspector Mangesh Bhange.
A police team rushed to the spot and found Atif possessed a fake identity card. “We have arrested the trio on the charges of impersonation and forgery ,“ Bhange added.