On Sunday, a 42-year-old man was arrested in Malabar Hill for posing as Ajit Pawar OSD (Officer on Special Duty) to cheat on the people. He used fake letterhead with the forged signature of the Deputy Chief Minister.
The name of the accused, Pravin Prakash Sathe, has been arrested. Sathe is a native of Satara and a resident of Ulwe in Navi Mumbai. The police have charged him under Sections 318(4) (cheating), 316 (2) (criminal breach of trust ), 336(3) (making false documents or electronic records with intent to cause damage), 340(2) (forged document or electronic record) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. He is in the police remand till Tuesday and has to be produced in court.
The situation was discovered last month when Sathe claimed to be Ajit’s OSD and shared a screenshot of the deputy CM’s forged letterhead with his forged signature, stating that he had been appointed an OSD.
Atul Shitole, a 53-year-old Pune resident who filed the complaint, informed the police that Sathe had also stated that he operated out of the deputy chief minister’s official residence, Devgiri, in Malabar Hill.
Sathe had told many people he was working as a government officer and took money from them under the pretext of helping them with government-related work. During the investigation, the police found a screenshot of the forged letterhead in his mobile phone’s photo gallery.
A police officer said, “We will extract the data to ascertain that he has duped many people.”
A senior officer said that they were also investigating at which other places Sathe had misused the forged letterhead and how many people he had cheated.
“We have also been investigating how the accused prepared the documents using forged signatures and how many people have suffered financial losses on account of him,” said the officer.
The officer said, “It also appears that he could not have done all this alone—there must be accomplices with him.”
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