ISLAMABAD: A man who claimed to be an official of the Punjab police and joined the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) after resigning from the force turned out to be an imposter.

When the official entered the venue of the sit-in and announced his decision to join the party on Tuesday, the PTI workers lifted him on their shoulders. The man introduced himself as SI Yasir of the Punjab police from Faisalabad.

Yasir claimed that he had come with the contingent of the Faisalabad police for security duty in Islamabad.

Shortly after the announcement, the officials of the capital and Punjab police began verifying his identification, a policeman monitoring the verification process told Dawn.

“His belt number 861 was fake,” he said, adding the self-proclaimed SI was wearing the uniform of the Punjab police but had the badge of the Elite Force. Besides, the badge on his uniform was also wrongly placed, he added.

“On suspicion, the in-charge of the Faisalabad police contingent was approached to verify the claim of Yasir but the reply negated his (Yasir’s) claim,” he said.

There are 22,000 police officers from the Punjab, railways and Azad Kashmir police in Islamabad. Among them, only two officials were named Yasir and both were present on their duties, he added. The snaps of Yasir were also sent to the CPO Faisalabad office which after verification reported back that the man did not belong to the Faisalabad police.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2014