In a police complaint, Congress leaders said they received a call with Kamal Nath’s name on the screen. The caller told them that “Kamal Nath needs money urgently”.
Post Date – Thursday 23rd – 2:18pm – July 13th
Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh police crime unit has arrested two Gujarat residents for forging the phone number of former Chief Minister Kamal Nath’s office and demanding money from three Congress leaders posing as the head of his office.
The four Congress leaders who received the call (Nath’s number was displayed on the phone) were: MLA Satish Sikarwar and state party vice-president Ashok Singh (both in Gwalior), the newly appointed Indore City Unit chief Surjit Singh Chadha with former state party treasurer Govind Goyal in Bhopal.
In a police complaint, Congress leaders said they received a call with Kamal Nath’s name on the screen. The caller told them that “Kamal Nath needs money urgently”.
However, upon enquiry, they discovered it was a fake call.
One of the leaders, Govind Goyal, asked the caller to collect the money (Rs 10 lakh) from his residence in Bhopal.
At the same time, he also called the other three leaders to his home.
Later, two men from Gujarat came to Goyal’s house to collect the money but when the city police were alerted, the two were captured and handed over to the Bhopal Crime Division for further investigation.
“We have also filed a written complaint with the crime department and the case has been opened. Both accused have been arrested,” Madhya Pradesh Congress media chief KK Mishra said on Thursday.
Subsequent investigations revealed that two young men named Sagar Parmar and Pintu Parmar (both residents of Mehsana, Gujarat) were working as Angadia (couriers) for some hawala operators.
The duo, who are currently residing in the Piprani area of Bhopal, were actually at the behest of someone in Indore to collect the money from Bhopal Congress leader Govind Goyal.
Caller ID spoofing involves a caller deliberately falsifying the information displayed on the caller ID transmitted to the recipient in order to disguise their identity.
In this case, four congressional leaders had their phones showing Ness’s phone number through some sort of spoof calling/fake calling app, police allege.
