Ahmedabad man held for seeking money from industrialist using Bharuch MP’s name

A police complaint was submitted by the Bharuch MP on April 30 after at least 15 industrialists informed him that they had received such fake calls.

An Ahmedabad resident was arrested Saturday for posing as an employee at BJP MP Mansukh Vasava’s office and fraudulently seeking donations from several industries of Dahej and Jhagadia in Bharuch for construction of temples and other religious activities.

A police complaint was submitted by the Bharuch MP on April 30 after at least 15 industrialists informed him that they had received such fake calls. A case was subsequently filed by Dahej police under several IPC sections.

Acting on technical surveillance and human intelligence, Bharuch LCB police Saturday arrested Ritesh Joshi, a resident of Pushpa Kunj Society near Uttamnagar at Nikol village in Ahmedabad, and recovered two mobile phones and seven SIM cards from him.

Bharuch LCB police inspector J N Jhala said, “While visiting his relatives at different villages, the accused used to collect phone number, names of the sarpanch and political leaders, and roadside signboards put up at real estate sites. He made calls on the inquiry numbers on the signage and obtained the phone number of the builder from Google. He also noted the contact number of HR managers of different companies and made them calls seeking donation for construction of temple or carrying out religious activities.”

In 2020, the accused had used the name of Daman BJP MP Lalubhai Patel and Daman sarpanch Dinubhai Patel to make calls to the industrialists there and demanded on pretext of various religious activities, Jhala said.

“He is involved in 11 such offences and cases were registered on him at different police stations in Ahmedabad, Daman, Surat, Bharuch, Gandhinagar, etc. He was successful in most of his attempts. After calling the industrialist, Joshi shared a bank account number and told them to deposit the amount in that account which he would later withdraw,” the police inspector said.

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