All it took was two phrases to blow the lid off a rigorously crafted impersonation perpetuated by this 66-year-old man for a 12 months.
It began when the Ghaziabad Police Commissionerate and District Justice of the Peace’s workplace obtained a letter on Tuesday, requesting “essential protocol and safety preparations” for “Dr (Prof) Okay S Rana, Excessive Commissioner of the Sultanate of Oman (Muscat)”. At first look, police mentioned, the request didn’t appear uncommon since safety preparations need to be made for visits by senior diplomats.
The VIP protocol would have been put in place — however for one mistake that caught Ghaziabad Police Commissioner Ajay Kumar Mishra’s eye.
“Oman shouldn’t be a part of the Commonwealth,” Mishra mentioned. “There can’t be a Excessive Commissioner to Oman. I discovered it odd and requested my workforce to confirm the place the letter had come from.”
The diplomatic designation, he mentioned, was a crimson flag because the time period ‘excessive commissioner’ is simply used for Commonwealth international locations.
After due verification, police on Thursday arrested ‘Excessive Commissioner’ Rana for impersonation, concealing his id, and making ready faux paperwork.
Rana, it turned out, was no peculiar imposter. Police mentioned he was a former vice-chancellor of a number of universities in India.
How did the police draw him out?
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The letter, written by his “personal secretary Dev Kumar”, gave them the chance to put a lure. This letter, police mentioned, talked about that Rana could be attending an “necessary assembly” in Kaushambi, in Ghaziabad, on Thursday.
So, they knowledgeable Rana that the mandatory preparations had been made. When the person reached Kaushambi on Thursday, he got here nose to nose with a police workforce, was questioned, and was taken into custody.
Police mentioned Rana, a resident of Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar, was a former Vice-Chancellor of Kumaun College in Nainital (2018 to 2020), Uttarakhand Residential College in Almora (2020-21), Mewar College in Rajasthan (2021-22) and College of Know-how in Jaipur (for a number of months in 2024).
His former colleagues at Kumaun College confirmed to The Indian Categorical that he had served because the Vice-Chancellor and mentioned they final heard he was the Vice-Chancellor at Mewar College.
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Deputy Commissioner of Police (Trans Hindon) Patil Nimish Dasharath mentioned Rana had been posing because the Excessive Commissioner since August 2024. He needed to take “undue benefit of the system”, he mentioned.
“He had been profitable in getting VIP protocol at Mathura and Faridabad earlier. He additionally posed because the ‘Excessive Commissioner’ of Oman at an awards perform in Delhi on February 22,” the DCP mentioned.
He mentioned they’ve written to the Embassy of the Sultanate of Oman and the colleges the place he has labored previously to hunt extra info.
Throughout questioning, police discovered that Rana additionally headed the Division of Zoology/ Environmental Science, Entomology & Fishery on the Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar College in Agra earlier.
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In an announcement, the DCP mentioned he had additionally labored within the “Appraisal Authority with the Ministry of Setting earlier than transferring to a trade-related Bengaluru-based NGO, as a commerce commissioner in 2024”.
“Quickly, the place of commerce commissioner became the ‘Excessive Commissioner of Oman’ on paper, and he appointed a private secretary, Dev Kumar, who helped him perpetuate the fraud,” Dasharath mentioned.
Kumar has not been arrested but.
Saying the arrest, police introduced Rana to a press convention in Ghaziabad on Thursday, the place he mentioned he needed to take pleasure in “VIP safety and services”.
“I put in a faux blue quantity plate used for diplomats on my personal automobile (Mercedes GL 350). I additionally put a blue beacon on the automobile, a sticker of the Sultanate of Oman on the entrance and rear windshield, and a crimson sticker of the World Human Rights Safety Fee on the entrance windshield of the automobile,” he mentioned.
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The automobile has been seized by the police. An FIR has been registered towards Rana at Kaushambi police station in Ghaziabad underneath sections 319(2) (dishonest), 318(4) (fraud), 336(3) (alteration of paperwork for fraud) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
Chatting with The Indian Categorical, Mishra mentioned Rana was caught due to two errors he made. “When an Ambassador or Excessive Commissioner strikes past the Nationwide Capital Territory, a letter is written to the Ministry of Exterior Affairs, which in flip writes to the state authorities searching for the mandatory preparations. They can’t write to us immediately,” he mentioned.
The second, he mentioned, was the designation of “excessive commissioner”. “It didn’t add up,” Mishra mentioned.
The Embassy of the Sultanate of Oman couldn’t be reached for remark.
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