Union Minister Ramdas Athawale said on Saturday that a person tried to cheat him by telling a false story of the accident on the phone but he survived due to his assistant’s vigilance.
Referring to the incident, the Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister said that he was in Bihar yesterday (on Friday) when he received a call from a person. Athawale told that he (the caller) described himself as a teacher of Shirdi in Ahilyanagar district of Maharashtra.
Athawale told reporters in Shirdi, “The caller claimed that a vehicle carrying his school students had crashed in Gondia, due to which eight to 10 students were injured. He asked for money for their treatment through G-Pay (Google Pay). I called my party workers in Gondia and asked them to investigate and help it.
Soon after (then) I received a call, in which the caller claimed that the accident took place in Bhandara and the children have been advised to be admitted to JJ Hospital in Mumbai. ”
The Union Minister said that he found something wrong because Nagpur, the largest city in Vidarbha, is closer to Bhandara than in Mumbai. Athawale said, “After this 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 organized Gondia Yatra. The number from which the call was received, I will give it to the Home Department for a thorough investigation.