The Meerut police claimed to have achieved a major success when acting on a tip-off from Army Intelligence, they laid a trap and nabbed a man who was posing as an army major and duping youths on the false promise of recruiting them into the armed forces as Agniveers.
The accused, identified as Ganesh Bhatt of Panchkula in Haryana, introduced himself to people as ‘Major’ Dinesh Dahiya, Lalkurti police station in-charge Naresh Kumar disclosed on Thursday.
According to Kumar, the accused led a group of 3-4 people who used to conduct meetings with defence aspirants and charge around Rs 5 lakh per candidate. Bhatt even wore an Army uniform to give a false impression to the youths, he added. On receiving complaints about Bhatt, an Army Intelligence team in Meerut shared the information with the police following which the police laid a trap and arrested the accused, Kumar claimed.
The team caught him in uniform on Wednesday night and immediately informed the sleuths of the Army Intelligence so they could grill him and extract more details before producing the imposter in court.
An Army uniform, some documents, fake Army identity and canteen cards have been recovered from the accused, the police said, adding that they also found Bhatt’s pictures with Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala and several other MLAs on his phone.
The police registered a case against him and are trying to identify those he had cheated, Kumar said.