Cases of miscreants impersonating government officials and either looting or taking money from innocent citizens is becoming a regular affair in Ghaziabad. Ghaziabad Police today claimed to have busted a duo that collected road tax from commercial vehicles after charging them with violation. This third such incident in the past 10 days.
Police said the miscreants had earlier worked as drivers for senior government officials and hence knew how they behaved, which made impersonation easy for them.
The miscreants Mahesh and Anil were arrested from near the petrol pump near Kanauni bridge in Indirapuram. They would move around in a white Mahindra Bolero marked with the initials and insignia of the Uttar Pradesh government. While Mahesh would act as the Road Transport Officer (RTO), Anil would act as his subordinate officer.
Officials said that Mahesh had worked as a driver for a forest department and the department of sales tax in the past.
“This is how they learnt how to stop and check vehicles and to behave like senior officials. They would avoid busy areas like highways and only stop vehicles moving through the arterial roads of the trans-Hindon area,” said Dharmendra Singh Chauhan, circle officer, Indirapuram.
Apart from the vehicle, the police have also seized a blue beacon light, which would often be found atop vehicles of senior officials before the ban on their use in May last year.
A similar incident came to light around 10 days back, when cab drivers flagged a fake RTO who would issue fake tax receipts to cab drivers. Again, only yesterday, a group of khaki-clad robbers stopped a Mumbai-based jeweller in Ghaziabad on the pretext of checking and looted 10 kg of gold jewellery at gun point.