Vijayawada, September 08, 2022: A 32-year-old man, the personal secretary to an MP from Andhra Pradesh, was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly posing as a security officer associated with the Ministry of Home Affairs and trying to get close to Union Home Minister Amit Shah during his visit to Mumbai on Monday.
Police said Hemant Pawar was arrested under Sections 170 (personating a public servant) and 171 (wearing grab or carrying token used by public servant with fraudulent intent) of the IPC.
According to the complainant, Assistant Commissioner of Police Nilkant Patil, the incident took place when he was overlooking police bandobast around Girgaon during Shah’s visit to the city on Monday. Patil was monitoring the police personnel deployed on the route through which Shah was set to pass to arrive at Malabar Hill to visit both Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis’s residences.
Patil said in his statement that around 12.15 pm, after Shah arrived at Fadnavis’s residence, he saw a person wearing a white shirt and a blue blazer according to the reports published in indianexpress.com. He wore an identity card of the Ministry of Home Affairs. Patil said the man was roaming around in restricted zones. A few hours later, Patil again saw him outside Shinde’s official residence. On enquiry, the man identified himself as Hemant Pawar and claimed he was a member of the central government agency, the complaint said.
However, after Shah left for Delhi, the CRPF contacted the zonal DCP and inquired about the man. The police said, the DCP the forwarded Pawar’s image to Patil, who said he had seen him outside Shinde and Fadnavis’s residences. Following this, a manhunt was launched and Pawar was picked up from Nana Chowk in Grant road on Tuesday.
