CHANDIGARH: If a cop asks you to hand over your jewellery to him in the middle of the road, you might never get it back. Fraudsters posing as policemen and sleuths of investigating agencies like income tax, CBI and Intelligence Bureau are swindling gullible residents of cash and jewellery. These conmen have come all the way from Mumbai and have struck in cities of Punjab and Haryana too.In the last 10 days, the “Irani gang”, as it is known, has tricked two women and a family of lakhs of rupees. Pawan Kumar, DSP, crime branch, said the modus operandi in all three cases is similar. The criminals, according to police, alert women about the menace of burglary in the area and persuade them to put jewellery in polythene bags handed out to them, claiming they would be safe. However, while conversing with women, the conmen manage to change the bags.Two women residents of sectors 19 and 27 were duped of their gold jewellery by two miscreants in two separate incidents on October 23. Onkar Devi, 60, a resident of Sector 19 D, said she was walking on the road near the irrigation department at Sector 18, when a youth dressed in a black shirt and trousers approached her. She said he warned her against wearing gold jewellery on the road owing to a spurt in snatchings. The complainant removed both her gold bangles weighing 10 grams each, two rings of 4 grams each and put them in a white bag handed over to her. The accused changed the bag, giving her a different one and sped away on his motorcycle. The complainant said when she opened the bag, she found fake bangles in it.In the second incident, Kamlesh Gupta, a resident of Saini Vihar, Baltana, who used to work in United India Insurance Company, alleged two youths came up to her near Manimajra market. “They were wearing black shirts and trousers and told me that gold should be avoided in public places. Then they asked me to put the gold items in a white paper,” she told the police. The woman kept one gold bangle and gold ring in the white paper and both fled from the spot after changing them with fake jewellery, the woman said.In the last few months, the gang members have duped several persons at Karnal, Panipat, Ambala, Gurgaon, Patiala and Ludhiana. The DSP said the gang is highly active in Maharashtra and Karnataka.

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