Hyderabad: A 35-year-old man was arrested in Hyderabadon Sunday by Jubilee Hills police for allegedly cheating several persons, mostly government officials, by collecting money from them after posing as minister or bureaucrat.

Machiraju Bala Venkata Subramanyaeshwara Sharma, a native of Amlapuram town in Andhra Pradesh's East Godavari district, was involved in several cheating offences, police said.

He used to cheat people by posing as political leaders, bureaucrats, senior officials in the government as well as educational institutes, like engineering, and medical college directors, they said.

Recently, Sharma introduced himself as marketing commissioner Dana Kishore and called up Agriculture Market Committee secretary TSRK Sastry.

He informed that his children lost their luggage while travelling in train and that they had to attend urgent medical counselling. He requested Sastry to arrange Rs 50,000, a release from Hyderabad Police said. Believing his version, Sastry arranged the money, police said. He also called up two other government officials and told them the same story and asked to arrange Rs 40,000 and Rs 30,000, respectively, which he later collected.

On August 6, Sharma called Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) project officer at Paderu in Visakhapatnam and introduced himself as Principal Secretary J C Sharma.

He asked the officials to help his children by providing Rs 30,000 as they were attending the counselling at NIT in Warangal and had lost baggage while travelling, police said. Sharma used similar tactics and cheated various others in Hyderabad, besides in districts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Several cases were registered against him in this regard in the past, police said. The accused collected money from the victims through online banking.

In some cases, he also took money from drivers of transport buses by asking the officers to hand over the sum to them, police said. A case under sections 420 (cheating) and 419 (cheating by impersonation) of IPC has been registered against him, police added.

Source:PTI