Lucknow: 'Munnabhai' constable held for fraud

LUCKNOW: It was an act he pulled off for five years before being busted.

A man in the guise of a 'dabang' police constable had been serving sub-divisional magistrates since 2014 before he was finally arrested in Gorakhpur by the Special Task Force (STF) on Tuesday.

Ashish Chaturvedi (30) was serving as a gunner to sub-divisional magistrate of Khajani Vivek Kumar when he was arrested.

He has been booked for fraud, cheating by impersonation, among others.

Chaturvedi's arrest shocked many in Khajani. He used to visit the SSPs office with confidence and was also a part of the meetings with senior police officials, said an officer.

A khaki uniform with insignia of Uttar Pradesh Police , a fake ID card of UP Police and Rs 60,000 were recovered from him.

IG Gorakhpur JN Singh has asked CO Khajani to conduct a probe into Chaturvedi's inclusion as gunner in the SDM's office.

SSP STF Rajeev Mishra told TOI that they had received inputs from local intelligence that a man was serving in the guise of police constable.

"We conducted an identification drive and it came to light that the batch number Chaturvedi claimed was fake," said Mishra.

Chaturvedi began working with SDM Ganghata in Sant Kabir Nagar in 2014. In 2015, after the SDM got transferred, Chaturvedi's guise was exposed. However, in 2017, Chaturvedi migrated and started working with SDM Rudauli in Faizabad , again posing as a constable.

In February 2018, Chaturvedi was arrested but released on bail after which he started working with SDM Khajani.