MARGAO
Konkani appears to have spared many unsuspecting parents from falling into the trap of fraudsters calling parents across the State even as there has been no decrease in the number of calls made by the "fake police" to parents.
For, the callers identify them as police in Hindi, without realizing that overwhelming majority of Goa police officers and personnel communicate with the citizens in their mother tongue.
A parent told The Goan that he became suspicious when the caller called him up in Hindi when the Goa police use Konkani language in their communications. “I became alert when the caller spoke to me in Hindi. The Hindi language and their accent indicated the callers cannot be Goa police officers or personnel”, the parent said.
Another parent pointed out that the caller disconnected the call after he told the caller that he can meet him at the police station.
A day after the Goa police issued an advisory that people should not take calls of the fraudsters, there seemed no let up in the calls made by the “fake police” to parents of students on the ground their wards have landed in trouble in fraud and other cases.
While many a parent from Chinchinim village had received the calls from the fake police in the last couple of days, many a parent from Navelim village have come under the scanner of the miscreants as they have started receiving similar calls.
Former Margao Municipal Chairperson Savio Coutinho received a call identifying himself as a police officer. Conversation between the caller and Coutinho revealed that the caller, speaking in Hindi, first sought to know whether a particular girl is her daughter or not. The caller went on to instill fear that his daughter is in the police custody having been arrested in a fraud case.
Coutinho was asked by the caller whether he would like to talk to her daughter, but when Coutinho insisted on speaking to his daughter, one could hear cries of a girl in the backdrop.
As Coutinho kept insisting on talking to his daughter, the caller had no option than to shout at the former, before disconnecting the call.
