Athawale received a fraudulent call demanding money, alert worker saved him

The Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, while referring to the incident, said that yesterday (Friday) when he received a call from a person, he was in Bihar. Athawale said that he (the caller) introduced himself as a teacher from Shirdi in Ahilyanagar district of Maharashtra. Athawale told reporters in Shirdi, “The caller claimed that a vehicle carrying students of his school had met with an accident in Gondia, due to which eight to 10 students were injured. He demanded money through G-Pay (Google Pay) for their treatment. I called my party workers in Gondia and asked them to investigate and help. Soon after, I received a call (again), in which the caller claimed that the accident took place in Bhandara and advised to admit the children to JJ Hospital in Mumbai.” The Union minister said he suspected something was fishy as Nagpur, the biggest city in Vidarbha, is closer to Bhandara than Mumbai. “After that, my assistant Sachin Bhati investigated and found that the caller was a fraud. Sachin asked me not to send any money. I also came to know from the police that no school in Shirdi has organised the Gondia trip. I will give the number from which the call came to the home department for thorough investigation,” Athawale said.