According to DCP (Zone 11) Makarand Ranade, the accused who had been conning people for the past few years has cases registered against him in various police stations. “Parmar would accost any person on the street and claim to be an old acquaintance. He pretended to have met the victim at some wedding or function. After striking up a conversation with the unsuspecting victim, Parmar would offer to buy tea and would go to the nearest restaurant for refreshments.”

Once inside the shop, Parmar would ask for victim’s mobile phone to make an urgent call. He would tell the victim that his phone ‘had a weak battery and would exhaust soon’. “The victim would readily agree to hand over the cell phone and after a few minutes of pretending to call someone, Parmar would claim that the network is weak in the hotel and would step out with the phone, thereby disappearing from the scene,” said Ranade.

Acting on a tip off, the Kandivali police arrested Parmar on March 4 and recovered two gold chains and 14 high-end cell phones worth in all to the tune of Rs 1.24 lakh. Talking about his background, Senior Police Inspector Surendra Jaiswal said, “Parmar stays on his own at lodges throughout the city after being disowned by his father due to his activities. Parmar can speak Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati very fluently and he often used this fluency in languages to put the victim at ease by speaking to him in his own language. Moreover, he has a natural gift of befriending people with his cheerful demeanour and smooth language skills, which he would use to his advantage in his operations.”