Kolhapur: Rs 25 lakh was looted from a businessman allegedly by fake election officials, police said on Wednesday.
Voting for the Maharashtra Assembly polls will be held on November 20, while the counting of votes will take place on November 23. Police said that inspection teams have been formed by the Election Commission at the entrance of the district. However, a gang of five robbers took advantage of this. A bogus team collected Rs 25.50 lakh cash from the businessman Subhash Laxman Harane (50), a resident of Kolhapur, at some distance before the government check post by exactly mimicking the ongoing inspection by the government inspection teams.
They said that the incident took place in the wee hours of Tuesday near the Tawde Hotel flyover off the Pune-Bengaluru highway. They said that five police teams were dispatched to search for the suspects.
According to police, the five robbers, aged between 25 and 30, wearing decent clothes and possessing fake identity cards, intercepted Harane's car on the service road.
Two or three started searching the car. At that time, a bag containing Rs 25.50 lakh cash in the car fell into the hands of the bogus officials. Harane tried to tell them that it was his business money. However, the robbers fled with the money and proceeded to Sarnobatwadi, police said.
They said that Harane reached the Gandhinagar police station and filed a complaint. Police also said that Additional Superintendent of Police Jayashree Desai, Sub Divisional Officer of Karveer Sujit Kumar Kshirsagar, and Inspector of Local Crime Investigation Branch Ravindra Kalamkar inspected the spot. Police Inspector Deepak Jadhav said that the suspect vehicle has been identified and further investigation is underway.
