A 25-year-old IAS aspirant, who posed as the Secretary to the Minister of State (Home) and a high-ranking IB official to dupe Government servants after threatening them of a ‘black money’ probe against them, has been arrested by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police.
The accused has been identified as Shiv Shankar, a resident of Aligarh. He was arrested on Saturday from University Metro Station on Saturday.
He is a PhD holder from RMl University, Faizabad and had appeared in a number of competitive exams, including UPSC (IAS), IB, CDS, and SSC, to name a few. He
wanted to open his own IAS academy and was arranging money for that. He even
married a girl after making her parents believe that he was indeed an Intelligence officer.
The high-profile impersonator came under police radar after it got a complaint from the office of OSD to MoS, Home enclosing a complaint of one Puran Singh, a retired officer from Election Commission that he had received several threat calls in late October wherein the caller had introduced himself as
Shiv Shankar, an IB official and as Shiv Kumar, APS to Minister of State (Home).
“The caller told Singh that enquiries are being conducted against him for the black money procured during his Government service and asked him to meet at gate no. 3, North Block, New Delhi so as to settle the matter. On this, Singh contacted office of MHA and forwarded his complaint. A team led by DCP Bhisham Singh arrested the accused,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Yadav.
On further verification by office of Minister of State (Home), it was found that neither such officer nor the numbers mentioned in the complaint belongs to their office; hence, the complaint was forwarded to Crime Branch for taking legal action into the matter which arrested the accused on Saturday. During interrogation, the accused allegedly confessed his involvement in the crime and disclosed that he used to impersonate as an IB officer (MHA) and also as an APS to Minister of State (Home) to call the complainants to obtain money from him. Two mobile phones used by the accused to make calls to the complainant in present case have been recovered from the accused, Jt CP added.
“Some documents used by the accused to represent himself as an IB officer have also been recovered from possession of the accused. The SIM cards used by accused in offence could not be recovered and he has disclosed that he had destroyed these SIM cards. Accordingly Section 201
IPC has also been added in the case,” added Yadav.
On further interrogation of the accused, he revealed that he has also worked with several NGOs in education field and was looking to open his own IAS Academy and was in need of money for this. He started blackmailing and threatening the peoples to earn easy and quick money as he used to impersonate himself as a higher rank IB officer posted in MHA in general public and even he got married with his wife by posing himself as an IB officer to his in-laws. Further investigation is in progress. Other victims of the accused are being traced.