The Fake Who Breached India's Formidable Security !

 

 BY R.K.MISRA

One fake is enough to question many facts. When two come to light in quick time, it is a nightmare disguised as a dream.

Close on the heels of a fake feigning his way into the ranks of a police training  establishment for officers in Gujarat, comes news of an Ahmedabad conman breaching the might of the multi-layered security in the most sensitive region of Jammu and Kashmir using fraud credentials of the country’s most heavily screened  establishment- The Prime Minister’s Office . And doing it not once but thrice before nemesis caught up with the culprit.

The most heartening part, in both cases, is that  the con-culprits were nabbed and will now face the full brunt of the law but the cause for concern remains. The fake trainee may, at best, rank as a procedural lapse but the Jammu and Kashmir penetration of  a multi-layered security grid by a fake who lacked finesse but flaunted Z-plus security in the valley, is the stuff of a national nightmare that needs re-evaluation at the highest level.

While his doctor wife would have you believe that her husband Kiran Patel, the man who faked being an additional director, strategy and campaigns, in the Prime Minister Office(PMO), is working in ‘national interest’ and is being needlessly defamed, the emerging profile paints an altogether different picture. The impersonator used bluff and bluster, name-dropping, swagger and social media, paraded a plush lifestyle replete with swanky BMW and a posh residence in a pricy area of Ahmedabad, to carry on his business, unmindful of the criminal trail he left behind.

Though  the alleged imposter had spread his dragnet around four states besides his home ground of Gujarat, it was on his third high profile visit to the Kashmir valley that the establishment woke up to his shenanigans and he was picked up from  a top hotel, questioned and then taken into custody after he faltered. He was arrested on March 3 but the matter remained under wraps until he was produced in court last week and sent to judicial custody. The cops said there were three others with him but had made good their escape. Two of them, Amit Pandya and Jay Sitapara have been arrested. Pandya’s father works with the Gujarat Chief Minister’s Office( CMO).A probe is on.

Sources in the Gujarat police aver that Kiran Patel had been making forays into J&K  flaunting that he had been entrusted with monitoring key ongoing projects. The other states that figured on his frequency were  Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

The conman had been involved in at least three known cases of cheating in Gujarat. An Ahmedabad event management company owner was  ostensibly his first victims-subcontracted government contracts and paid for timely, ostensibly to build confidence and subsequently duped in the next one involving an alleged amount of  Rs one crore  leading to a case being filed in Vadodara. Another cheating case followed in 2017 for alleged  acts committed  in the previous two years. The first time he posed as a PMO official is reported to have been in 2017 when he allegedly conned a retired police officer’s son of Rs one crore and threatened him with connections in the PMO where he claimed to work when asked to repay. Another 2017  cheating complaint for Rs one crore pertains to him taking 16 cars and failing to return them.

Claiming a line  of  degrees including a  PhD. From a US University, on social media, bulk of them fakes, Patel had made it a point to attend  meetings held for BJP workers, and hovering around the state party headquarters and the secretariat to showcase his heft in the portals of power. The man even had the gall to organize a conference claiming it a part of the warm-up to the G-20 summit at a top Ahmedabad hotel  on ‘emerging avenues for industrial development ‘ which was advertised as being attended by top state government officials. Sources in Gandhinagar as well as Srinagar point to the man not even sparing government officers, offering them key postings, lucrative  government contracts to businessmen, even ‘important’ positions to party functionaries , all for a consideration. Two BJP leaders with financial dealings with Patel are also under the scanner. He has also reportedly cheated a senior judicial officer of Uttar Pradesh under promise of a posting in the apex court . The total amount  involved in all these clandestine dealings could be anybody’s guess. Interestingly Patel runs an audit firm in Ahmedabad.

As the trail of investigations hots up, those who were once scrambling to get onto Kiran Patel’s bandwagon are doing double time distancing themselves from him now. And these include some BJP leaders as well. The faker-shaker had lavishly littered the social media with his as well as his family members photographs with important leaders in the ruling power structure.

However this  entire imposter episode has raised more questions than his arrest has answered. How could such a fake manage the clout that he ended up with while evading  any scrutiny over his earlier visits to a very sensitive state which has a multi-layered security cover ?. How did he manage bullet-proof vehicles for movement, Z-Plus security and access to militarily curtailed areas?. How come the impenetrable security cover thrown over the border state prove buttery enough for a braggart to break through by merely brandishing his tongue ?  Did Patel manage to get a mobile number  allotted in the government series and how ?

While the country’s ruling party and the Opposition squabble over apology and Adani -over slights to national honour and scams of economic hurt- it would do well to address an issue that shows a conman- breached national security, in bad light worldwide !

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