3 held for taking cash from migrants in lieu of seats in special trains
Panvel City Police arrested three people for allegedly cheating 23 migrant workers on the pretext of arranging seats for them on a Shramik special train on Friday. They collected money from the workers and had them assemble at a place in Panvel.
“The state government is already paying the train fare of all migrant workers and no one has been authorised to prepare a list of migrant workers and collect money for train fares,” said police.
The arrested have been identified as Hasan Yakub Saiyad, 45, Raghvendra Ramshwar Gupta, 42, and Irfan Mahigir, 42, all are residents of Panvel. They were arrested around 3.23 am on Friday from a slum in Panvel. According to police, they had taken money from 23 persons from Wadghar in Panvel and Dapoli in Ratnagiri, who were walking back to their home state, Bihar. They had also prepared a list of such migrants and had them gather at a spot in Panvel. “They have violated the state government order, prepared a list and also collected money,” said a senior officer from Panvel City police. When the fraudsters failed to provide accommodation, the migrants created a ruckus, the officer said.
Abbasaehb Misal, municipal commissioner of the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) and Navi Mumbai, led a long march in Koparkhairane node on Friday, to create awareness of Covid-19 and boost the morale of officers from the health and police departments. The Koparkhaiarne node has the highest number of positive cases in Navi Mumbai. Of the total 1422 positive cases reported under the NMMC jurisdiction, 317 cases are in Koparkhairane alone.