Father-son held for duping by posing as IPS officer

Aligarh: A man, claiming to be a retired senior executive from the Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), and his son, posing as an IPS officer, have been arrested by the Aligarh Police for allegedly extorting money from people.

The police identified the fake cop as Anuj Chawla, 34, who introduced himself to people as an IPS officer posted in the Home Ministry, Delhi. He is a law graduate from Dehradun.

Anuj's father, Rajendra Chawla, 66, who retired from the BHEL, was also involved in the scam with him and the duo had been fleecing people for the past five years. They belong to Lucknow.

The police found that their car had several fake vehicle passes purportedly issued by the Union Home Ministry and Uttar Pradesh government, apart from fake investigation reports of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and a two-way walkie-talkie set.

Superintendent of Police (SP) Arvind Kumar said that the vehicle, Innova Cresta, carrying a logo of Deputy Inspector General (DIG), was spotted by the police during checking at the Bhikampur crossing.

Kumar said that the vehicle in which they were travelling in was hired from Lucknow and a DIG star plate was displayed on it.

The two occupants were questioned by the police and finally they confessed that they were impersonating the policeman.

The driver, who drove the car to Aligarh, was told that they were travelling to Aligarh on a secret inspection of COVID-19.

Circle officer Bannadevi area, Pankaj Srivastava, said that they had come to Aligarh two days back and had stayed in a posh hotel. They later shifted to some local resident's house. The father and son had also duped some people by promising marriage to the 'IPS officer'.

Srivastava said that whenever someone questioned them about their backgrounds, they usually told them that his name and details would not be available on google as he was working as a secret officer at the Kolkata branch of NIA.

An FIR has been registered under various sections including 170 (impersonating a public servant), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of IPC at Bannadevi police station. Further investigations were on.