Watch out for fake accidents

Conmen in the city have a new trick up their sleeve staged motor mishaps that lure the gullible who attempt to help

Watch out for fake accidents

Conmen in the city have a new trick up their sleeve staged motor mishaps that lure the gullible who attempt to help

Last week, the driver of a city based advocate was robbed by a group of three conmen who faked a road accident to divert his attention and made away with a laptop and other valuables worth around Rs 1 lakh.

Janardhan Raju, who is working as driver for lawyer Jayanth Pattanashetty, was delivering his employer's belongings from home to office. When the car reached Haynes Road, a middle-aged man suddenly came out of nowhere and fell in front of it.

Raju screeched to halt in the middle of the road and jumped out to see if the man was okay. To his surprise the man got up and walked away as if nothing had happened. Raju thanked his luck and returned to the car to find the back door open and the valuables missing.

In his complaint to the Ashok Nagar police, Raju said that two men posing as curious onlookers flicked valuables from the car and escaped before the man who feigned the accident walked away.

The police say that this is a novel technique used by such gangs, since the general public had become alert to earlier tricks like dropping currency notes on the street to divert people's attention and then robbing them.

Incidentally, a similar incident too occurred last week when a group of conmen dropped Rs 10 notes in front of a man and made away with his cash bag which contained Rs three lakh.

Sunil Manohar, a granite company employee, was returning to office after withdrawing the amount from the bank. He had stopped his vehicle in front of a temple to offer his prayer. A boy aged around 20 years approached him and told him that there were some currency notes lying in front of his car.

Manohar got off from the car, and while he was busy picking up the notes, the other members of the gang picked up the cash bag lying on the car's back seat.

It is only recently that the city police chief SM Bidri instructed police officers to act tough on such conmen and muggers. He said that they should take tough measures including using firearms to curb such incidents which are on the rise in the city.

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