Gang ran fake police station for months

An Indian gang dressed up as police officers and ran a fake police station out of a guest house for eight months, extorting money from hundreds of people right under the nose of real police officers.

The fake building was 500 metres away from a real police station and involved a scam in which six people demanded money from locals who wanted to file complaints, report crimes and apply for government assistance.

Among the ringleaders was Anita Devi Murmu, 25, who was caught wearing a black cap and police uniform with a pistol in a brown holster worn on a belt. She reportedly admitted to posing as head of the station, which was on the main road in the centre of Banka, a town in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.

Murmu would talk to locals and promise solutions to their problems in return for bribes, according to media reports.

The station was manned by another person, Aakash Kumar Manjhi,

27, who wore fake badges on his shoulders and pretended to be an aloof deputy superintendent.

But they were caught red-handed after they tried to shake down business owners in a shopping centre this week.

Murmu and Manjhi said they were conducting a site inspection of the under-construction governmentfunded shopping complex.

“They talked to a few applicants and told them to visit the police station on Thursday for allotment of shops,” said Shambhu Yadav, who heads Banka’s real police station.

As the duo walked back from the site, Yadav saw Murmu in uniform and became suspicious when he noticed that her gun was a locally made Katta pistol instead of an official standard-issue revolver.

When he asked her where she was posted, she fumbled and became nervous, he explained.

“We took them to the real police station and during interrogation, they revealed they are operating a police station nearby,” Yadav said.

When they raided the fake station, police recovered four uniforms, 40 electoral identity cards used for applying to various rural development schemes, bank cheque books and five mobile phones.

They also found 500 unsent application forms for the Government’s special housing scheme, which provides affordable shelter for poor people. “For a routine police complaint, they would charge from 100 to

500 [rupees] ($2-$10) but for allotment of houses and police jobs, the bribe would be in several thousand,” officials said. The forms and complaints were never sent onwards.

One real policeman said: “We have heard cases of fake cops or investigating officers in the country. This is the first time we have heard of a fake police station.”

Murmu and Manjhi were arrested with three others, Ramesh Kumar, Wakil Kumar and Julie Kumari Manjhi. Murmu and Manjhi have denied any wrongdoing. They claimed they were victims of a scam and thought they were given real police jobs. The other three and Bola Yadav, the suspected kingpin of the gang, have not commented on the allegations.

Although not normally this sophisticated, incidents of fraudsters masquerading as police officials or soldiers are common in India, where there is widespread respect for anyone in uniform.