Fake Police Expected to Solve Crimes? Happens Only in India
For more than three months, the Vyasarpadi police station in Chennai had an extra constable nobody had assigned. The 21-year-old showed up claiming attachment to the Avadi battalion, said he lived in U Block in Vyasarpadi, and asked a policeman about crime policing -- and was told to drop by the station whenever he had time. He did, regularly, assisting the regular policemen. His name was Hariharan, and his identity card was fake.
The fraud came to light only when a policeman actually checked the card. By then Hariharan had been on the run since the previous Monday. He was arrested on Wednesday near Katpadi and brought back to the city, where he confessed, police said, and was remanded to judicial custody.
The station's personnel allegedly tried to hush the matter up. What forced it into the open was an intelligence report submitted to police commissioner T. Rajendran, detailing the case. On the commissioner's instructions, the Vyasarpadi police registered a case under IPC Sections 419 (impersonation), 420 (cheating), and 471 (using a forged document as genuine).
Three months of policing by a man the police never hired -- solved crimes not included.
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