Of morphed pictures, fake trophies and big money

Con artist cheated many by claiming that he represented India in world wrestling championship.

You must have seen a few misguided sportspersons resorting to unfair means like taking performance-enhancing drugs or getting involved in rigging the game. But here is a youth who has left behind the aforementioned breed of athletes far too behind.

The 19-year-old lad took his college, village, taluk and the media for a ride by making false claims that he represented India at the world wrestling championship in New York, won nationals at New Delhi, so on so forth.

Many organisations in the taluk and district, taking pride in his ‘achievements’ honoured him, some gifted him fat cheques. Believing his words, legislator K N Rajanna had felicitated him during the Republic Day function. Even the TMC had honoured him and had given him a cash prize, too.

Meet Lakshmikant, a second PU student of Gautam Buddha College in the town, the “hero” of the story.

Lakshmikant used to make people believe that he was indeed a wrestler, flaunting his morphed photos. He had morphed a photo which portrayed him accepting a trophy from cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar. He would convince the college management and local organisations with doctored certificates, medals and trophies.

The con artist used to plead with the organisations that he has been picked for international tournaments and that he was facing funds crunch. Many organisations had donated money to fund his trip to 'international events'. He continued his cheating spree and made quite a bit of money out of it.

Suspecting the veracity of the claims made by Lakshmikant, the students of Hanuman School filed an application under RTI seeking information about his passport. Madhugiri town police station PSI had replied stating that they have not received any application for passport in the name of Lakshmikant for 2013-14.

Lakshmikant’s dirty tricks were exposed after the applicants gathered information about the ‘wrestler’ in question. Wasting no time, they lodged a complaint against him with the local police.

After learning about the complaint, Lakshmikant has fled his village Basavanahalli.
TMC member M S Chandrashekar and students of Hanuman Vyayam School, including Anand, R A Narayanappa, Mill Rajanna, Marutish, N Ram, Venugopal, Naveen Kumar and others have urged the district sports officials and the police to take stringent action against the cheat.