Man arrested for posing as NIA officer

A middle-aged man was arrested on charges of attempting to cheat the block development officer (BDO) of Sutahata in East Midnapore by posing as an IPS officer posted with the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Police said that the accused, Indranil Bose is a resident of Kakurgachi in Kolkata and he was picked up by the police from an office at Sutahata.

A senior police officer said that the accused had contacted the SDO Sanjay Sikdar over phone at around 9 am on September 29. He introduced himself to be an IPS officer of 1988 batch and claimed that at present he was posted with the NIA. Indranil told the BDO that he had studied in Narendrapur Ramakrishna Mission and a senior IAS officer was his classmate. 

He claimed that he still maintains a good relationship with his IAS friend. Subsequently, the accused asked several questions to the SDO and it led to his suspicion. The accused had sent several SMSs and called many times to the SDO in the past two days. Thus, Sikdar informed the police.

Sikdar also told to the police that the accused told him that being an officer of NIA, he would soon be conducting a raid in Sutahata to arrest a person known as Milad Hossain. He had claimed that NIA would arrest Milad as he was suspected to be involved in certain activities against the state. He had also sought support of the SDO and local police to conduct the raid.

Sources said that the police had asked the SDO to urge Indranil to come to his office when he would call him the next time. The SDO followed the directions given by the police and asked Indranil to visit his office. But he was not ready to visit in his office. Later, the police had picked him up from Sutahata itself and he was arrested following his interrogation.

It is learnt that the police came to know after preliminary investigation that the accused had a plan to cheat the SDO by taking money from the latter. The team of policemen from East Midnapore would be visiting the accused’s residence at Kakurgachi.