Lottery Stall Owners Targeted by a Gang of Police Imposters

It seems that good old lottery stall owners are also not safe from criminals. In a crime that can only be categorised as bizarre, a group of criminals were arrested after they were caught extorting money from chemists and lottery stall owners. Two of the gang members were arrested by the Division 4 police who claimed that the accused would impersonate CIA staff to extort money from their victims.

As per the accused, they claim to have gotten the idea from a Hindi movie, Special 26. The arrested accused have been identified as Jagjit Singh alias Jaggi of Shimlapuri and Amandeep Kumar alias Deepa of Barota Road of Shimlapuri. Bhupinder Singh alias Bhinda and Happy, two remaining members of the gang are still on the run.

The gang had been successful in stealing ₹2 lakh from Balwinder Singh, owner of the Mal Medical Store at Bahadurke Road.

Gurpreet Singh Sikand, Additional deputy commissioner of police (ADCP, city 1) stated the arrests were made after the police received a tip off. Deepa was arrested by the Vigilance Bureau in Jalandhar where he had gone to extort money from a travel agent. According to the ADCP, one member of the gang would pose as the senior officer while the others would impersonate as his juniors.

A case has been registered on counts of section 170 (impersonating a public servant) , section 420 (cheating) and 384 (punishment for extortion).

This goes to show you how even the humble lottery stall owner is not safe in India but at least the criminals were arrested. Maybe the criminals would have been better off playing international lottery instead 😉