Man impersonating cop addresses senior incorrectly, gets caught

‘Janab’, ‘Saheb’ or ‘Sahib’—Delhi Police personnel commonly address their superiors thus. But when a 42-year-old man, who claimed to be a constable in the police

‘Janab’, ‘Saheb’ or ‘Sahib’—Delhi Police personnel commonly address their superiors thus. But when a 42-year-old man, who claimed to be a constable in the police force, instead addressed an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) as ‘Babuji’ while asking him to remove the barricades in his vehicle’s way, the officer was immediately suspicious.

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The man turned out to be an impersonator when the officer checked his ID card and found that even after apparently serving for almost 29 years, the cardholder was still a constable. Also, the man did not appear to be old enough to be a veteran on the force. As the officer and three other policemen questioned him—what was his belt number? the reason his promotion was delayed? could he recite some policing codes?—the man surrendered and confessed to impersonating a constable, a senior police officer said.

“We arrested the man, one Virender Kumar from Haryana’s Rohtak, and booked him for impersonation, cheating and fraud. We seized the fake police ID card too,” deputy commissioner of police (Rohini) Pramod Kumar Mishra said.

DCP Mishra said that Kumar was caught at Nizampur-Bamnoli border police post in outer Delhi’s Kanjhawala around 2am on Friday, when the Santro car he was travelling in with another man was stopped for checking.

As the four police personnel stopped the car, the man on the front passenger’s seat identified himself as Constable Virender Kumar and directed them to remove the barricades, saying he was chasing a vehicle some criminals were fleeing in. He showed them his police ID card and constantly addressed the ASI as “Babuji”.

“The policemen became suspicious as ‘Babuji’ wasn’t the word they used to address senior officers. They checked his ID card and found that the personnel identification system (PIS) number mentioned on it actually belonged to an assistant sub-inspector posted in the police control room unit,” a police officer privy to the incident said.

They arrested the impersonator and, during the interrogation, he revealed that he had been using the fake police ID card for the past six-seven months to get smooth passage at border checkpoints. “We are trying to find out if he used the fake ID card for any illegal activities,” the officer said.

The police said the man driving the Santro car told them that Kumar wanted to go on a long drive during the lockdown. Kumar had asked him to drive him to Delhi in his car, saying his police ID card would help him cross the border without being stopped.