New Delhi: The Delhi Police Cyber Cell has arrested two men for allegedly impersonating Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar in a bid to seek favours from senior government officials to buy a petrol pump, said a police statement issued Monday.
Deputy Commissioner of Police, Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit, Prashant Gautam said 22-year-old Gagandeep Singh, a native of Jammu, had been living in Italy with his family since 2007 and works there as a labourer. The other accused, Ashwani Kumar, 29, is a resident of Patiala, Punjab, police said.
Singh was arrested from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport while Kumar was apprehended from Patiala.
The matter came to the notice of the IFSO unit after a few senior government officials reached out to them last October, following which an FIR was lodged, police said. The accused have been booked under sections 419 (punishment for cheating by personation) and 170 (personating a public servant) of the Indian Penal Code, and section 66 (computer-related offences) of the Information Technology Act, police said.
Gagandeep Singh had plans to buy a petrol pump in India and was allegedly trying to pull strings in the name of the Vice President, sources in Delhi Police told ThePrint.
According to the police, Singh got contact numbers of senior government officials from the internet, while Kumar allegedly helped him create a WhatsApp account on an Indian phone number which was used to target government officials.
“After creating a WhatsApp account, he put an image of the Vice President of India as a profile picture. Using this impersonating account, he started sending messages to senior government officials to seek favours from the senior bureaucracy,” DCP Gautam said in a statement.
Police sources said that the phone number had been functional since March 2022. “[Senior government] Officials informed the police about this and also sent screenshots of the same after which the police registered an FIR,” a senior police officer said.
Gautam said a team was constituted under the supervision of Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Manish Jorwal and details of the impersonating profile were obtained from WhatsApp, adding that the IP address of the sender was traced to Italy.
Technical surveillance and human intelligence was deployed to identify the accused, he further said. “Raids were conducted and Ashwani Kumar was arrested. After an extensive hi-tech investigation, human intelligence and analysing technical details provided from social media platforms, Gagandeep Singh was identified as an Indian living in Italy. The team collected details about the accused from FRRO (Foreign Regional Registration Offices), banks and regional passport office. He was apprehended from the IGI airport.”
In the past, similar instances of scammers impersonating senior officials/officers have surfaced, including one of former Delhi Police commissioner Rakesh Asthana’s image being used as a Whatsapp profile picture to threaten a lawyer.
(Edited by Anumeha Saxena)
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