Scores of reports have recently been registered with the capital police of imposters, posing as police and armed forces officers, looting citizens.

Last week, police said, a man tried to trick Federal Parliamentary Secretary Rana Mohammad Afzal Khan by pretending to be a senior army officer. The impersonator made a call to the MNA seeking his help in getting a job and told him that he was a software engineer.

Later, the MNA received another call in which the caller introduced himself as a brigadier and pressured him to arrange a job for the engineer. He said the job seeker was the nephew of a corps commander.

In response, the MNA wrote a letter to the president of the Zarai Taraqiati Bank (ZTBL) with a request to help the engineer, the police said. A few days later, the man who impersonated a brigadier called the MNA twice asking him to use his influence to get a job for the engineer.

On March 16, the parliamentary secretary received another call and this time the caller introduced himself as a lieutenant general and asked him to help the engineer.

The police said the man, who claimed to be a lieutenant general, started blackmailing the parliamentary secretary. The MNA told the man on the phone, to ask the engineer to meet him at his office at the Pakistan Secretariat.

The next day, the engineer visited the parliamentary secretary’s office. A deputy superintendent of police had already been called to the office and the police officer began quizzing the engineer.

During the interrogation, the engineer began sounding suspicious and then admitted that he had called the MNA and pretended to be both the brigadier and the general to get a job for himself.

The police then arrested the imposter. He was later shifted to the Secretariat police station where a case was registered against him.

But when the police produced him in the court of a magistrate, he was released on bail. The bail was granted on the grounds that the accused had impersonated an army officer to get a job and not harm or defraud anyone.

This was not the first incident of its nature.

On March 15, the Noon police arrested three people on the charge of impersonating army officers and claiming to be working for an intelligence agency. The arrest was made after a suspicious car was spotted with its registration plates covered in mud.

When the police approached the riders of the car and asked for their identification, they produced bogus service cards of the army. A search of the vehicle led to the recovery of dummy wireless sets and iron rods.

The police registered a case against the three men and during questioning it emerged that they used to snatch valuables and cash from citizens.

They posed as security personnel and stopped people to search them and in the process snatched their valuables and cash.

In January, the police also arrested a man who tried to mint money from parliamentarians on the pretext of constructing mosques in Lahore and Haripur. He also introduced himself as an army officer.

During interrogation, it was revealed that he had been dismissed from Pakistan Navy in 2002 where he worked as a welder.

Several other incidents were reported to the police where citizens complained that they were robbed by people posing to be army and police personnel.

Although security has been on high alert and law enforcement agencies are conducting joint operations in different parts of the city, criminals continue to rob citizens by pretending to be officials of the security forces.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2015

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