Three held for running food licencing fraud in Surat
Updated: Oct 1st, 2024
FSSAI licence scam in Surat |
Two women posing as Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) officials, duped a local shopkeeper by taking money for a fake FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) licence.
Police sources stated that the complaint was filed on September 30 by 35-year-old Pratik Boghara, a resident of Sarthana’s Yogi Chowk area in Surat, who owned a grocery store named Gurukrupa Sales in Shyamdham Chowk’s Shyamdham Society.
The official complaint states that two women, dressed as SMC officials, visited his store on August 16, showed their fake identity card, and demanded an FSSAI licence from Pratik. As he did not have one, they offered to get it done for him and collected the necessary documents and a fee amount of ₹2,680.
However, later, during a conversation with his acquaintances, Pratik suspected foul play by the two women and reckoned them to be imposters.
Subsequently, he spotted them near a shop located in Pasodara and hence informed the police.
Following this, the police swung into action and arrested the two women, Komal Parmar (25) and Shobhna Jalondhara (24).
Their interrogation revealed that a lawyer named Rohangiri Goswami (37), operating an office in the Shubh Plaza shopping centre, located in Varachha’s Punagam area, had hired them to collect money for fake licences.
Further investigation also revealed that although Rohangiri is a lawyer, he is currently not practising and had misled the two women into committing this fraud.