Probe initiated into VIP treatment to PM 'advisor'

A case may be registered against him, police said here on Saturday.

The Mohali Police had provided VIP security, including a pilot and escort jeeps, to take the man, who called himself by the same name as the prime minister, around the district.
However, later he was arrested in Jammu and Kashmir by the police there for posing as an advisor to the prime minister.

Manmohan Singh, a 50 year old resident of Delhi, had also printed a business card, which mentioned him as Political Adivsor to the prime minister with minister of state rank and his chief coordinator during the 13th Lok Sabha.

Punjab’s Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), security, has directed an inspector general-ranked official to look into the matter and probe the circumstances that led the police to provide security cover to the pretender.

“We have informed the ADGP that we had received a fax message asking us to provide security and to make other necessary arrangements for the visit of the prime minister’s advisor.

 Based on the inquiry, we can also register a case against this fraud man,” Mohali district police chief Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said.  The fake advisor was nabbed on July 13 in Katra town in Jammu and Kashmir after officials there got suspicious of him.

But before the arrest, he had enjoyed the security and hospitality of the state government in visiting the Hindu shrine of Vaishno Devi.

In Punjab, the impostor got a government car with a red-beacon, police security and escort. Even Congress legislator from Mohali, Balbir Singh Sidhu, and other local politicians came to greet him here.

Sources in the state government said the man went around with the security and other facilities to Ludhiana and Amritsar cities in Punjab before going on to Jammu and Kashmir.