A 40-year-old Bengaluru resident, H Maruti from Yelahanka, has been arrested by Tumakuru police for allegedly impersonating Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara and forging his signature on a letter addressed to the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister’s Office (AP-CMO), reported The Times of India. The fake letter sought VVIP passes for the darshan of Lord Balaji in Tirumala temple.
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According to the report, the incident came to light when K Naganna, the special officer to the home minister, filed a complaint with Tumakuru police on Saturday. Authorities arrested Maruti on Sunday, placing him under judicial custody. Naganna said that Maruti contacted the AP-CMO and shared a counterfeit letter through WhatsApp, requesting VVIP passes for individuals he referred. Additionally, he reportedly took money from pilgrims in return for securing the passes.
Recently, an attempt was made to counterfeit the letterhead of an officer to Karnataka deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar to illegally convert agricultural land in Mysuru's Kesare village into residential plots. The Vidhana Soudha police in Bengaluru have registered an FIR under Sections 336(3) (forgery for cheating) and 340 (using a forged document as genuine) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Shivashankar S, the officer on special duty to the deputy chief minister, filed the complaint.
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{{/usCountry}}In a similar incident earlier, a woman government executive engineer in Bengaluru was duped by a man who allegedly posed as an assistant to Karnataka IT minister Priyank Kharge. The accused extorted ₹80,000 from the engineer and promised her that he would help her to get the posting. The office of the IT minister filed a complaint that said an executive engineer in the Karnataka government was reached out by a man named Raghunandan. He introduced himself as an assistant to Kharge and said he would help her with her long-pending posting. However, he took money from the victim and did not respond to her calls.