Pune’s serial impostor goes down playing his last act as CM Devendra Fadnavis’ PA
Amit Jagannath Kamble, 29, a resident of Nimbalkar wada in Navi peth, Pune, impersonating as one of Fadnavis’s PA, then called up the Ahmednagar police and asked them to move the convicts who received the death penalty in the Kopardi rape and murder case to Pune’s Yerawada prison.
He has posed as a doctor, a police officer and a social activist. He had then got arrested and when he made bail, refused to accept it, telling police he cannot survive outside jail.
Now, Pune’s serial impostor may have put on an act that may be his last - he impersonated Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’s personal assistant.
Amit Jagannath Kamble, 29, a resident of Nimbalkar wada in Navi peth, Pune, impersonating as one of Fadnavis’s PA, then called up the Ahmednagar police and asked them to move the convicts who received the death penalty in the Kopardi rape and murder case to Pune’s Yerawada prison.
The police, however, noticed something was wrong and began an investigation which led to his arrest.
Kamble’s latest ruse began on November 29, the day the Kopardi sentence was announced.
He dialled the Ahmednagar police that evening, posing as the CM’s assistant, calling himself as just ‘Kulkarni’, asking for the convicts to be moved to Yerawada. Interestingly, none of the CM’s PA goes by the name of ‘Kulkarni’.
Two hours later, Kamble called up again, this time posing as additional director general of police in charge of state prisons, Bhushan Kumar Upadhyay.
He once again asked the police authorities to immediately shift the three convicts to Yerawada central prison for security reasons.
The two calls in a row made the Ahmednagar police suspicious.
The subsequent investigation zeroed in on Kamble, who was arrested on Monday.
“Kamble has served several jail terms for duping people,” said Ahmednagar superintendent of police Ranjan Kumar Sharma.
Out on bail a fortnight ago in a case of cheating, inspector (Ahmednagar police) Dilip Pawar said that Kamble had refused to take bail claiming that he can’t feed himself outside the jail.
Kamble, who claims to be suffering from “renal inefficiency”, was arrested in 2014 by the Pune police crime branch for duping several patients posing as a doctor. Kamble would ask patients for money to buy medical equipment. In fact, Kamble ran this con at least three times in different parts of Maharashtra.
Kamble was first arrested by the Hadapsar police for posing as the then home minister RR Patil’s personal assistant.
Against the backdrop of the sensitivity of the Kopardi case and the identity of the official assumed, Kamble just might get his wish and not make bail this time.
