Woman booked for cheating migrants on assurance of arranging train travel passes

Police said on May 22, the woman had allegedly accepted Rs. 1,000 each from five migrant workers who are all stranded in Pune but want to travel to their home state of UP and had assured to fill their forms and get them passes for travelling to UP by train.

A woman has been booked for allegedly cheating stranded migrants of Rs. 5,000 on the false assurance of arranging their train passes for travelling to Uttar Pradesh.

According to the police, the woman, identified as Pushpa, a resident of Hadapsar, has been booked under Section 420 of IPC after one Rajeshkumar Shamcharan Gautam (40) lodged an FIR in the case on Tuesday.

Police said on May 22, Pushpa allegedly accepted Rs. 1,000 each from Gautam, his friends Rohitkumar, Rajeshkumar Yadav, Vijaykumar and a woman, who are all stranded in Pune but want to travel to their home state of UP.

Police said Pushpa assured to fill their forms and get them passes for travelling to UP by train.

Senior Police Inspector Ramesh Sathe of Hadapsar police station said, “We have not arrested the accused yet. Investigation is on. Complainants are migrants who wanted to go back to their native places in UP… We appeal the migrants not to give money in such manner to any private or unauthorised person for getting travel passes.”

According to a press release issued by the Pune City police on Wednesday, between May 9 and May 26, a total of 50,702 migrants have been sent back to their states. Police said on May 26, five trains were made available for migrants. They include one to Balasore in Odisha with 742 migrants onboard, to Gorakhpur in UP with 1,400 migrants, another train to Gorakhpur with 987 onboard, a train to Katihar in Bihar with 1,091 migrants and a fifth train to Jharkhand with 677 migrants. Police said santisers, masks, soaps, food items and water were provided to migrants.