A man was arrested for allegedly duping people by impersonating police officers and pressuring them to part with money and jewellery if they did not want to be arrested in a false murder case against them, police said.

Cases have been reported in Burrabazar, Bowbazar, Hare Street, Muchipara, Entally and Amherst Street police stations about such a crime, where victims were convinced by a “cop” that they were “wanted” in a murder and the only way to get rid of the case was to handover the money and jewellery they had on them, a senior officer in Lalbazar said.

As a part of his modus operandi, in all the cases, the victims were allegedly made to wait on the pretext that the “cop” was going to make a call to his senior officer. The victims would wait while the accused would flee, the police said.

Police officers, during the probe, examined CCTV cameras of all the locations where the victims were duped and found the image of the same person in all six locations.