Cops nab aide who helped ‘fake BARC scientist’ forge ID cards

Mumbai Police arrested Munazzir Khan for aiding a man posing as a BARC scientist, who used fake IDs to defraud foreign nationals.

MUMBAI: Ten days after the arrest of a 55-year-old Versova resident for posing as a nuclear scientist from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), the Mumbai Police have now caught the man who allegedly helped him forge his fake identity.

Cops nab aide who helped ‘fake BARC scientist’ forge ID cards

The Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU) of the Mumbai crime branch on Monday arrested Munazzir Khan, 34, from Jamshedpur in Jharkhand for allegedly helping the main accused, Akhtar Hussain Qutubuddin Ahmed, fabricate bogus BARC identity cards.

Ahmed was arrested on October 17 after police received a tip-off that he was posing as a scientist associated with India’s premier nuclear research institution. During the arrest, officers found two fake BARC identity cards- one in the name of Alexander Palmer and the other Ali Raza Hussain.

“During interrogation, Ahmed revealed that two men had helped him forge identity cards and documents. Based on this information, we arrested Khan from Jamshedpur,” a senior officer from the CIU said.

The police are also on the lookout for another accomplice, identified as Mohammad Iliyas Mohammed Ismail.

Investigators said several diagrams and technical sketches were recovered from Ahmed, which are being examined to determine whether they contain genuine or sensitive material. However, officers suspect that the forged documents were merely props to impress and cheat foreign nationals.

“The quality of the cards and documents is poor. It appears he used them to gain credibility and extract money from people abroad by posing as a BARC scientist,” the officer added.

Police inquiries have revealed that Ahmed, who has a keen interest in physics and regularly reads international science journals, used his limited knowledge to sound convincing. In the past, he reportedly worked in oil and marketing firms in the Gulf and was deported from Dubai in 2004 after being accused of attempting to sell “sensitive information” about India. However, investigations by Indian agencies at the time had found no evidence against him.

In his latest scheme, officers said, Ahmed used his fabricated scientist persona to meet foreign nationals, attend international gatherings, and solicit money while claiming access to confidential nuclear data.

“He is a smooth-talking con man who never entered any high-security zone but made others believe he could,” said a senior police officer. The police said they have written to BARC and other central agencies after the arrest to verify all his claims.