Delhi man held for impersonating Amit Shah’s OSD

The suspect issued directions to officials of a private company to appoint himself as a senior official for the Ganga Expressway project

The Delhi Police on Sunday said they had arrested a 48-year-old man for allegedly impersonating the officer on special duty (OSD) to Union home minister Amit Shah. The suspect was arrested on Saturday evening from his house in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut by a team of the cyber police station of New Delhi district, police said.

Additional deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi) Hemant Tiwari said that the cyber police station recently received a complaint from Akshat Sharma, a representative of a private company, who alleged that an email was received at the company’s email account from someone claiming to be Rajeev Kumar, OSD to the Union home minister. (Representational Image)

Police said that the suspect issued directions to officials of a private company to appoint himself as the senior associate vice president-cum-project coordinator for the Ganga Expressway project.

Additional deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi) Hemant Tiwari said that the cyber police station recently received a complaint from Akshat Sharma, a representative of a private company, who alleged that an email was received at the company’s email account from someone claiming to be Rajeev Kumar, OSD to the Union home minister. The suspect allegedly issued instructions to appoint one Robin Upadhyaya as senior associate vice president-cum-project coordinator for the ongoing Ganga Expressway project. Accordingly, a case was registered, and investigation was taken up, the additional DCP said.

“During the probe, it was found that the alleged email ID ‘rajeev.osd.mha@gmail.com’ was created around a week before the email was sent. Based on technical surveillance, the team zeroed in on the prime suspect Robin Upadhyay in Meerut. The suspect was subsequently traced and based on initial interrogation he was arrested,” added Tiwari.

The additional DSP said that during interrogation, Upadhyay revealed that he is a civil engineer by profession but is currently unemployed. He thought that if some high-ranking official would give his reference, he could get a job at the earliest, Tiwari said. Thus, Upadhyay created an email ID impersonating Rajeev Kumar, OSD to the Union home minister, and sent an email to the company giving instructions for his own appointment, Tiwari said. He also attached his biodata, showing his credentials for the job, said the additional DCP.