Fake traffic cop runs into real one, nabbed
SMART CON Accused Vicky Bharat bought a traffic policeman’s uniform from Kingsway Camp, duped motorists in Chandni Chowk
For seven days, Vicky Bharat’s daily routine included observing traffic police personnel while they were on duty. He took note of their mannerisms, how they dealt with traffic offenders and ways in which they issued challans.
Over the next seven days, Bharat allegedly minted thousands of rupees fining traffic offenders by posing as a traffic policeman on Delhi’s roads.
Bharat’s luck, however, ran out on Saturday after a real traffic policeman detected abnormality in his mannerisms. “A closer look revealed that no man under the name of Vicky Bharat was deployed with the local traffic circle. An immediate investigation showed the man’s police identity card and badge also to be fake,” said Jatin Narwal, DCP (North).
Bharat, who studied till only Class 12, was unemployed for long, police said. So, he made an elaborate plan to pose as a traffic policeman. He searched online to know the design and details of a police identity card as well as the badge worn by them.
How exactly he managed to get his fake identity card and badge is still being probed . The cops, however, know that once he managed to get hold of a fake identity card and badge, Bharat went to a garments shop in Kingway Camp in north Delhi to purchase a traffic police officer’s uniform.
“Our lower rank officers are provided uniforms. We have shops earmarked for selling such uniforms to our staff. But there are many shops in the city that sell police and paramilitary uniforms,” said a senior police officer on the issue of easy availability of police uniforms.
Bharat allegedly told a shopkeeper that he was purchasing the uniform on behalf of a relative who he claimed was a Delhi Police constable. Even, as he went about making these arrangements, Bharat would devote a few hours daily to observe traffic police personnel stop vehicles for jumping red lights and fining them.
Once he felt confident about pulling off the impersonation, Bharattookpositionnearatraffic signal in Chandni Chowk that rarely saw traffic police deployment. “He knew that it was easier to extract money from motorists jumping traffic signals as they feared losing their driving licenses for three months. Most of them would easily shell out Rs 300-400,” said an investigator.
Bharat allegedly made anything between Rs 1,000 and Rs 3,000 everyday for a week before traffic assistant sub-inspector Rajeev Chaudhary spotted him while driving past the signal on Saturday evening.
“I know my department well. So, when I saw this man posing as a traffic policeman, I was immediately suspicious. The way he stopped vehicles was not like what traffic policemen usually do,” Chaudhary told HT.
When Chaudhary stopped and stared at Bharat, the fake policeman began looking sideways. Bharat was not carrying a challan book either. Chaudhary checked Bharat’s credentials and alerted the local police.
Bharat turned out to be a resident of north Delhi’s Mukundpur. The idea to extort money by posing as a traffic policeman had struck him months ago after he read news reports about criminals impersonating police officers to execute robberies.