Once an army aspirant, a man from Kushinagar district was arrested in the state capital on Friday night for allegedly defrauding 17 people of an estimated ₹30 lakh on the pretext of getting them selected in the Indian Army and Indian Air Force, senior police officials said on Saturday.
Utkarsh Pandey, who ran a roadside eatery in Lucknow after unsuccessfully trying to get in the military, had lied to his family that he was now a lieutenant, U.P. Special Task Force (STF), who arrested Pandey while he was trying to flee to Delhi, said in a note. He used his false identity to cheat people, it added.
The STF said the accused had last taken an NDA exam and Air Force Group X & Y exam in 2020 but failed to clear them. To save himself from the embarrassment even when a youth from his village had cleared the Group X (technical) exam, Pandey lied to his family that he was undergoing training in Hyderabad, the STF officials said, adding he had been living in Lucknow since 2021.
The accused later bought a dress that looked like the air force uniform and wore it every time he went to his village.
{{/usCountry}}The accused later bought a dress that looked like the air force uniform and wore it every time he went to his village.
{{/usCountry}}“Everybody in his family believed that he was an air force officer and even people had organised a felicitation programme for him. Some eveb put up his posters congratulating him,” an STF official added.
The STF official said Pandey confessed to have duped 17 aspirants--seven from Kushinagar, six from Basti and three from Sultanpur and one from Ayodhya.