The Tulinj police have arrested two men for posing as municipal clean-up marshals and attempting to rob a daily wager in Nalasopara East. The complainant, Dharmendra Yadav, 28, said the accused Pawan Dubey and Mohit Chaturvedi stopped him on Wednesday afternoon and demanded to know why he had spat on the road. Despite Yadav insisting he never spat, they allegedly demanded Rs 1,000. “They grabbed my jhola and searched my belongings, saying they will drag me to the police station if I did not pay up,” Yadav said in his police complaint.

Two Tulinj policemen who were passing by stopped and enquired what the ruckus was about. The accused told them they were Vasai Virar City Municipal Corporation (VVCMC) clean-up marshals, though they were not in uniform and did not have IDs. The officers took the two to the police station, where enquiries revealed that they used to work as marshals but were no longer employed by the current contractor.