Man arrested for posing as PMO official: A man from Gujarat’s Vadodara was arrested for posing as an official from the Prime Minister’s Office for the admission of two children in a private school and allegedly attempting to dupe money with his fake identity, an official said on Saturday (June 24).
The man was identified as Mayank Tiwari whose arrest came months after another resident from Gujarat, Kiran Patel, who hailed from Ahmedabad, was apprehended from a five-star hotel in Jammu and Kashmir for impersonating a senior PMO official. Patel had also enjoyed security cover by duping officials in the Valley.
According to the official of the Waghodia police station, Tiwari identified himself as a director (strategic advisory) at the PMO in the national capital and reached out to the school’s trustee in March last year while the admissions were underway. Tiwari sought the school’s aid in admissions of the two sons of his ‘family friend’, who he said was an Indian Army official Mirza Baig and said he was being transferred to Vadodara from Pune, the official said.
The director of the school asked Tiwari whose WhatsApp status showed that he was a PMO official to get in touch with the trustee.
Lured trustee of bringing projects to school
Attempting to impress the trustee, Tiwari told her that he could use his clout as a PMO official and bring to the school various projects if they took care of the expenses, the official said.
According to the FIR, the smooth-talker took the trustee and the school’s director into confidence intending to cheat them of huge sums.
The official said that he secured the admission of the two children as special cases. A few months later, the trustee suspected Tiwari’s claims of being a PMO official and the education research projects that he mentioned initially. She then started talking to people in her circle and made a discrete inquiry about Tiwari, the official said.
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Trustee discovers the truth
The trustee later discovered that Tiwari was not a PMO official and had duped them by weaving a tale about his “immense influence”. The FIR said that Tiwari’s profession was not clear.
After the discovery, the trustee altered the school last month.
The Waghodia police on Friday registered a case on the complaint of the school administration under Indian Penal Code sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), and 170 (personating a public servant) and arrested him. With his arrest, Tiwari became the second person from Gujarat, after Kiran Patel, to be held for claiming to be a PMO official in recent months.
(With PTI inputs)
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