One arrested for duping budding photographers of their cameras, expensive equipment worth lakhs

Kolkata: It was like a dream come true for budding photographer Subhadip Sarkar of Jadavgarh when he was offered to shoot for a leading magazine. He did not think twice before travelling to Puri with his expensive camera and other shooting equipment for the assignment. However, his trip soon turned into a nightmare while shooting on the beach on September 4 as all his equipment went missing.

A man, who identified himself as Amitava Paul and claimed to be an associate of a leading magazine, had assigned Subhadip to click photographs of the Puri sea beach. He promised him a good price for his clicks to which he had readily agreed.

He had just gone for lunch keeping his camera equipment in the custody of Paul who had awarded him the assignment and when he returned, he found all his expensive shooting gear including his camera and laptop missing. Needless to say there was no trace of the person too.

A devastated Subhadip immediately lodged a complaint with Puri police station and returned to Kolkata. He shared his experience on several WhatsApp groups and social media accounts and soon realised that several photographers like him had also been duped in a similar manner. They then reached Garfa police station and lodged a formal complaint.

"Unfortunately, there was no distinct photograph of Paul. However, one of the photographers gave us a snap where Paul was trying to hide his face with his hands. Although his face could not be seen properly we noticed a ring on his right-hand finger and a black rubber band on his left hand. It was through this clue that we managed to track the person," an officer of Garfa police station said.

He was arrested from a hotel in Gariahat in which he was hiding on Friday. The sleuths have learned that he had been using Amitava as his pseudo name to rob the photographers and sold off their expensive equipment in the black market. His original name is Nilesh Mondal and hails from East Midnapore.

A raid at his residence led to the seizure of four laptops, two modern sophisticated cameras, many expensive lenses, handy recorders, six mobile phones, hard disks, memory cards, laptops etc. amounting to almost Rs 15 lakh.

"We even found five false Aadhar cards, false voter and PAN cards," a police officer said.