The police in Gujarat’s Surat city on Tuesday arrested a private tutor for allegedly posing as a scientist with the Indian Space Research Organisation to draw more students to his tuition classes, PTI reported.
Mitul Trivedi even gave interviews to the media claiming that he had designed the lander module for the Chandrayaan-3 moon mission, the police said.
Trivedi allegedly posed as the “assistant chairman” of ISRO’s “Ancient Science Application Department” and produced a fake appointment letter to back his claims. He also produced a fake letter about being the “space research member” for ISRO’s next project called “mercury force in space”, the police said in a statement.
The crime branch of the Surat Police booked Trivedi under Indian Penal Code Sections 419 (cheating by impersonation), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using forged document as genuine).
“We contacted the ISRO which said that prima facie the letter shown by the accused was not issued by it,” Additional Commissioner of Police Sharad Singhal told reporters, according to PTI. “The space agency will send a detailed reply to us soon.”
India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft made history on August 23 by making a successful soft landing near the south pole of the moon. The spacecraft with an orbiter, lander and a rover had been launched on July 14 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. It is expected to operate for two weeks and carry out a chemical analysis of the lunar surface.
Before this, only three nations – the United States, the erstwhile Soviet Union and China – have successfully landed spacecraft on the moon’s surface.
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