Around 5.30 pm on November 14, the phone rang at the office of DCP (Trans-Hindon) Patil Nimish Dasrat. With the DCP busy with a meeting, his PRO picked up. The caller identified himself as Anil Katiyal, a retired IPS officer of the 1979 batch.
But the 68-year-old was no retired cop. He was allegedly impersonating one to help out his friend, Delhi-based businessman Vinod Kapoor, who was booked in a cheating case. Police arrested both men Thursday.
It was when police questioned Katiyal that they realised he was no small-time cheat. Police said he is a resident of Greater Kailash I.Katiyal, Additional Commissioner of Police (Ghaziabad) Dinesh Kumar P said, told them he studied at the prestigious St Columba’s School. “On completing primary education from St Columba’s and college from Delhi University’s St Stephen’s, he told us he appeared for the UPSC examination in 1979 and failed. Then he said he went to Yale University to pursue a PhD but left it midway and returned to India,” Kumar said.
“Back in the country, Katiyal said he worked as a manager at Hindustan Lever (the name of the firm then) from 1980 to 2000… he also said he was also appointed vice-president at Vodafone, where he worked,” Kumar added.
It was after his retirement that he started cheating people, claimed police. His go-to ruse was to introduce himself as a 1979-batch IPS officer. “Prima facie, it seems like he was doing this to make money by duping people… but he also seems to be excited about the idea of behaving like a police officer. He grew up in that environment, there is a feel-good factor at the centre of it,” Dinesh Kumar P said.
The case that led to his arrest
During the three-minute, five-second call to DCP Dasrat’s office on November 14, Katiyal claimed he has friends in the police force. He then asked the PRO, sub-inspector Neeraj Kumar Rathore: “Who is your Commissioner?” the police quoted him saying.
Believing he was a retired police officer, PRO Rathore gave him the name and the number of the Ghaziabad Police Commissioner.
Katiyal then briefed Rathore about a case lodged at Indira-puram against Kapoor and handed over the phone to him to explain the entire matter, said police.
The police added that Kapoor took the phone and complained that the Ghaziabad Police allegedly picked him up from his Gurgaon residence and locked him in police custody without any evidence.
Katiyal, police said, took the phone back and told the PRO that the investigating officer in Kapoor’s case should be suspended and thrashed. He went on to say that he would have done it had he still been a cop, said police.
Incidentally, the friendship between Kapoor and Katiyal began just 15 days ago, said Additional CP Kumar. He said they met through a Dubai-based businessman who knew Katiyal.
Kapoor had taken Rs 75 lakh from a man and was refusing to repay him, said Assistant Commissioner of Police (Indirapuram) Swatantra Kumar Singh, and an FIR was registered against the man five months ago in the case. “When we went to verify his address, it was found to be fake… so, we booked him,” said Singh.
Police said Katiyal was booked for impersonating a retired IPS officer, taking undue advantage of his forged identity, pressuring and interfering in a police investigation relating to Kapoor, and forcibly extorting money while obstructing government work based on an FIR registered by SI Rathore.
