Gurugram, Jun 21 (PTI) A group of unidentified men have been booked for allegedly impersonating a local station house officer (SHO) over the phone and issuing threats to people to seek bribes from them, police said on Tuesday.

An FIR has been registered at Sector 40 Police Station following SHO's complaint.

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All the officers in the Gurugram Police, including the SHOs, have been provided SIMS from the same company's SIMs with a same series of numbers. These numbers are available to public to access.

Satish Kumar, SHO, Sector 40 Police Station, too has a number that's part of the same series.

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According to the complaint filed by Kumar, the alleged criminals used his number through call forwarding feature to dupe people.

The fraud came to light only when the targets started calling back the SHO's number.

According to the complaint, Kumar received calls from different people, who said they wanted to talk to the Sub Inspector of Gurugram Police.

These people said that they had received calls from the same number and the caller had abused them and said that there is a case against them.

Kumar received a call from a man named Navneet from Rajasthan's Alwar district, who alleged that he had been getting threatening calls from the same number and was being asked by the caller to settle a case against him by a lawyer for Rs 63,000.

Kumar in his complaint said he received a few other calls from other people too, besides Navneet's, allegedly targeted by the frauds.

Incidentally, the fraudsters made calls to their targets from their own numbers -- since according to complaint they got the calls from two different numbers - but diverted the incoming to the SHO's number, apparently, to make their bid seem more authentic.

Following Kumar's complaint, an FIR has been registered against unidentified people under sections 417 (cheating) and 419 (cheating by impersonation) of the Indian Penal Code IPC at Sector 40 Police Station.

“Our teams are on the job and we hope the accused will be arrested as eary as possible,” said Preet Pal Singh Sangwan, ACP, crime.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)