Constable held for posing as CM’s PA

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab Police have arrested a constable, identified as Manjinder Singh, for duping several people by impersonating as personal assistant (PA) to the chief minister and using a mobile app to falsely project him as senior officer of various designations.
Punjab DGP Dinkar Gupta has directed the special Punjab Armed Police DGP to dismiss the constable, who had been found to be indulging in criminal acts and was acquitted in three different cases on earlier occasions.Recruited as a constable in the Punjab Police in 2006, Manjinder was presently deployed as a sentry guard at 1st IRB, Patiala.
The DGP said the police had initiated action after Vijay N Zade, secretary expenditure and director mining, said he had been getting calls from a person claiming that he was speaking from CM’s residence. When it was checked, it was found that no such person was on duty at CM’s residence or office. However, the mobile app showed that the call had emanated from “CM house, Chandigarh”, Gupta said.
During preliminary investigations, the MBA degree holder cop disclosed that he had been calling up various officers by posing as Kuldeep Singh, PA to Punjab CM. These included Malerkotla DSP Sumit Sood, Ropar mining officer Manjeet Kaur Dhillon, superintendent of PRTC at Faridkot Sita Ram and naka in-charge near Nandpur Keshon Patiala-Sirhind road, police post Fagan Majra. A criminal case has been registered against him under various sections of the IPC and the I-T Act at Tripuri police station, Patiala. Further investigations are on and more revelations are expected, including the names of various victims whom he had duped and the amount he collected from them.
Eight mobile phones and a white SUV have been recovered from the accused’s possession.