The Jammu and Kashmir Police on Friday said they have arrested a Gujarat resident for posing as an official from the prime minister’s office.
Kiran Bhai Patel was impersonating an additional director for strategy and campaigns in the prime minister’s office, the police said. The authorities said that he got facilities normally given to officials from the prime minister’s office, including a bulletproof car, security personnel and official accommodation at a five-star hotel in Jammu and Kashmir.
Patel was apprehended from a five-star hotel in Srinagar on March 3 and was in police custody until Friday. Patel has now been sent to jail for 14 days, unidentified officials told PTI.
The police said a first information report was filed against him on charges of cheating and forgery on March 2. “As his replies were found suspicious, he was taken to police station [in] Nishat wherein he admitted his crime,” the police said. “Ten fake visiting cards and two mobiles were seized from him.”
Patel was on his third visit to Kashmir posing as a government official earlier this month when the allegations came to light, according to PTI. He was apprehended after the Criminal Investigation Department of the Jammu and Kashmir Police gave information to local authorities about the arrival of an alleged impersonator at Srinagar’s Hotel Lalit Grand.
Patel has a verified Twitter account and is followed by Bharatiya Janata Party’s Gujarat General Secretary Pradipsinh Vaghela, among others.
In visuals shared on social media, he can be seen at scenic locations in Jammu and Kashmir accompanied by armed forces. A picture also shows him in front of the clock tower Lal Chowk in Srinagar.
In his Twitter bio, Patel claims to have a doctorate from Commonwealth University, Virginia, a Master of Business Administration degree from Indian Institute Of Management in Tiruchirappalli as well as a Master of Technology degree in computer science and a bachelor of engineering degree in computer engineering.
Patel came under suspicion after he arrived in Srinagar on his second visit within two weeks as security agencies did not have any information of any VIP movement. The police tried to arrest him at the airport but he had already stepped into his bulletproof car for the hotel, according to the Hindustan Times.
Security officials have recovered forged identity cards from his possession, the newspaper reported, citing court documents.
The alleged conman also has three cases of cheating, forgery and breach of trust registered against him in Ahmedabad and Vadodara. Two of the cases were filed in 2019, while the third case was filed in 2017.
Meanwhile, three more persons who posed as members of Patel’s team may have escaped from Kashmir before the police arrested him, NDTV reported, citing unidentified sources. The three men – Amit Hitesh Pandiya, Jay Sitapara and Trilok Singh – reportedly stayed with Patel at the five-star hotel in Srinagar.
Pandiya and Sitapara are reportedly from Gujarat, while Singh hails from Rajasthan.
The alleged conman’s lawyer Rehan Gowhar, however, claimed that his client was arrested as part of a political conspiracy. “My client told me that he was accompanied by two more people from Gujarat,” the lawyer said. “Police have also recorded his statement before the magistrate under section 164. Both were set free by the police.”
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