Man masquerading as IPS officer held

He sought tickets for VIP darshan by submitting a fake ID card, police said

A man was taken into custody here on Wednesday for allegedly impersonating an IPS officer in order to secure darshan tickets.

Briefing the media, Tirumala Deputy Superintendent of Police T. Prabhakar Babu said that a man named S. Arun Kumar Pandu, a resident of Khammam who claimed to be a director of the Handlooms and Textiles Department of the Government of Telangana as well as the in-charge of the department in Andhra Pradesh, had applied for darshan tickets.

He had produced an identity card which mentioned that he was an IPS officer of the 1998 batch.

However, TTD Vigilance sleuths grew suspicious about the authenticity of the letter and the identity card, and alerted the local police who immediately took him into custody for questioning.

It is learnt that the accused had reportedly worked as an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) for several Telangana Ministers.

The TTD Vigilance sleuths have lodged a formal complaint with the police and an investigation is on.

In the past, an MBA graduate from Karnataka was taken into custody for submitting a letter with the forged letterhead of the Vice-President of India seeking VIP darshan tickets for his family. The letterhead did not bear any signature but sought VIP darshan for the Vice-President’s personal assistant Manjunath.