Probe into visit of PM’s fake adviser initiated

MOHALI - A high-level inquiry has been initiated into the visit by an imposter pretending to be an adviser of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here July 11 and based on the findings, a case will be registered against him, police said Saturday.

The Mohali Police had provided VIP security, including a pilot and escort jeeps, to take the man who called himself by the same name as the prime minister around the district.

However, later he was arrested in Jammu and Kashmir by the police there for posing as an adviser to the prime minister.

Punjab’s Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), security, has directed an inspector general-ranked official to look into the matter and probe the circumstances that led the police to provide security cover to the pretender.

“We have informed the ADGP that we had got a fax message asking us to provide security and to make other necessary arrangements for the visit of the PM’s adviser. Based on the inquiry we can also register a case against this fraud man,” Mohali district police chief Gurpreet Singh Bhullar told IANS.

The fake adviser was nabbed July 13 in Katra town in Jammu and Kashmir after officials there got suspicious of him. But before the arrest, he had enjoyed the security and hospitality of the state government in visiting the Hindu shrine of Vaishno Devi.

In Punjab, the imposter got a government car with a red-beacon, police security and escort. Even Congress legislator from Mohali, Balbir Singh Sidhu, and other local politicians came to greet him here.

Sources in the state government said the man went around with the security and other facilities to Ludhiana and Amritsar cities in Punjab before going on to Jammu and Kashmir.