- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
A man hailing from the western Indian state of Gujarat has been arrested by police from a five-star hotel in Srinagar in the northern union territory of Jammu and Kashmir for posing as an ‘additional secretary’ in the Narendra Modi government and enjoying security cover besides other hospitality.
According to court documents, Kiran Patel was on his third visit to the Kashmir valley and was subsequently nabbed by alert security officials on March 3.
Patel had claimed he had been given mandate by the government to identify buyers for apple orchards in south Kashmir and a couple of Indian Administrative Services officers were in awe of him as he had been dropping names of high-ranking bureaucrats and politicians in the national capital.
He was produced before a court in Srinagar on Wednesday (15) evening for extension of his police remand. A case under relevant sections of cheating and forgery was registered against him on March 2 and he was arrested the next day.
During his earlier visit, he had travelled to tourist hotspot Gulmarg claiming that the government had tasked him to look for improvement of hotel facilities in the area.
Security agencies got suspicious after he landed at the airport on March 2 as there was no information of any VIP movement.
An attempt was made to stop him at the airport but this could not fructify as he had already stepped into a bulletproof car on the way to the hotel.
After his questioning and subsequent arrest, security officials recovered forged identity cards from his possession, the documents said.
(With PTI inputs)
