The Uttarakhand police along with the help of Mumbai crime branch officials arrested a junior television actor for cheating a senior citizen and siphoning off her jewellery worth Rs 5 lakh on Tuesday.
On the basis of technical surveillance, the accused was found in Oshiwara locality of Andheri, Mumbai.
The accused impersonated as a policeman and on pretext of helping the senior citizen siphoned the old woman’s jewellery.
The accused was identified as Firoz Jafari alias Salman, 40.
A case was registered at the Patelnagar police station in Dehradun, Uttarakhand.
According to the police, Salman who has done minor roles in TV shows Savadhan India, Chittod Ki Rani Rajkumar Padmini, and Chhatrapati Raja Shivaji, as well as in a Hindi movie, headed a gang of three tricksters. They used to fly to different cities, where Jafari allegedly posed as policeman in uniform at traffic junctions and targeted the elderly wearing jewellery.
The police said he used to caution his victims by telling them fake stories of robbery attempts on senior citizens. Having struck fear in their hearts and having won their trust, Jafari would then allegedly offer to place their jewellery safely in a purse. But when placing it inside the purse, he would quickly switch the jewel with a stone and depart, said the police. Some of his victims would realise the theft only on opening the purse much later. The police said Jafari and his gang used to fly to different cities to carry out his fraud.
The Uttarakhand police team sought help from Mumbai police officials and local informers to apprehend the man.
During primary interrogation it was found that the accused impersonated as a police officer to con people and had earlier also committed similar offences in Nagpur and Dehradun.
Jafari has acted in various mythological and crime thriller shows and some low budget films, reports said.
