Cheat posing as Army officer held near cantonment area

The Detection of Crime Branch held an imposter who posed as an Army officer near the prohibited area of the Army cantonment in Shahibaug here today.
Identified as Raghuvirsinh Chauhan (34), a resident of Netrang village in Bharuch district, he was nabbed by Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) officials, in full Army uniform with the badge of the Parachute Regiment, an official press release said.
"The name plate on his Army uniform read 'J M Ahir'. However, his identity card read 'Pedapudi Bhupal'. It seems he photocopied a real identity card of a jawan named Bhupal and pasted his photo on it to pose as Army officer" DCB Police Inspector S L Chaudhari said.

Upon checking his bag, police officials found another uniform and some more badges of high ranking Army officers.
"We have also found some papers having names of BSF officers deployed in Jammu and Kashmir. However, our primary investigation revealed that he is not involved in any anti-national activity from whatever we found on him," Chaudhari said.
Chauhan confessed that he started wearing this uniform and made a fake identity card to impress people. He is a cheat, who duped many people by posing as an Army officer and a well known businessman, Chaudhari said.

Allegedly, Chauhan used to roam across the country and stay in luxurious hotels. He used to collect some phone numbers of prominent dealers and wholesalers of the city from the 'Just Dial' service, Chaudhari said.

"He used to call up these numbers and identify himself as the owner of a company from which the dealer buys his products. He used to inform the dealer that he urgently needed money since he met with an accident while visiting the city. He would ask them to deposit money into his bank account," Chaudhari said.
"Out of obligation and respect for such a high profile businessman, dealers used to deposit the money. Later, Chauhan used to withdraw it and flee to another city. We learned that he duped several businessman in Morbi town this way," Chaudhari said.