Imposter used contacts to con people
LUCKNOW: A man who posed as an advisor to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in India and claimed to be a former scientist of the USA’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in order to con people was arrested in Lucknow on Friday, following a fortnight-long investigation, said police.
The man, identified as Atul Sharma, 52, had links with several ‘VIPs and VVIPs’ and used these contacts to con people, they said.
“We came to know about the accused after an intelligence input. On further investigation, his credentials were found to be false,” said Abhay Mishra, circle officer (CO), Hazratganj, Lucknow.
Sharma had claimed to various people that he completed his engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, before moving to the United States of America to pursue his education at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He also told them that he had experience of working at the department of defence in the USA and at the research laboratory of a technology firm, said cops.
However, when the police questioned him about all these claims, he failed to prove anything. The sleuths said that Sharma was a “full-time con and a smooth talker”.
Police said he was arrested after the administration of IIT Kharagpur confirmed that he had not been a student at the premier institute.
A senior officer privy to the investigation said requesting anonymity, “He had the demeanour of an influential person and the know-how of the workings of government departments. He came across as learned and used this to support his fake credentials. Even after his arrest, he remained calm and kept repeating, in a casual tone, that we were arresting the wrong person.” Cops claimed that Sharma learned about the police process after his early run-ins with the authorities in other parts of the country.
PAST CASES
In 2012, Sharma was briefly arrested by the Oshiwara police in Mumabi on the charge of duping two women of around ₹ 2 million after claiming to be a NASA scientist. He had allegedly showed the victims a morphed image of himself along with the former President of the USA, Barack Obama, to support his claim. Investigators said they had found another case to have been lodged against him at a police station in Kolkata.
MARRIED MEERUT WOMAN FRAUDULENTLY
Sharma used his guise of a NASA scientist to marry a woman in Meerut in 2010. On September 19, this year, the woman lodged a police complaint against him in Meerut.
He was booked for attempt to murder and under other sections of the Indian Penal Code, said police. “The Lucknow police also lodged an FIR of fraud against him on September 24,” said a sub-inspector of the Hazratganj police station.
KEPT A LOW PROFILE
Sharma resided at a housing complex in Hazratganj, Lucknow, with his parents, said police. According to his neighbours, he kept a “very low profile” there.