Delhi Police's Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of Special Cell arrested a freelance journalist for allegedly impersonating Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and sending forged letters to several public sector units in a bid to obtain advertisements for his newspaper in 2016, police said on Sunday.
The accused Manoj Kumar Seth (41) was arrested on Friday from his home city Bhubaneshwar in Odisha by the Cyber Crime Unit of Special Cell.
Rajbhushan Singh Rawat, personal secretary to the Chief Minister, had filed a police complaint with the cyber cell of the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Delhi, alleging that some unknown persons had created a fake email ID using Adityanath's credentials, who was an MP in Lok Sabha at that time.
The accused had sent emails and forged letters to public sector units including Power Grid Corporation of India, ONGC and GAIL India. The accused also attached scanned letters with forged signatures of Adityanath.
During the course of the investigation, the fake email ID yogiadityanath.mp@gmail.com was identified and its contents were analysed to understand the motive. "The alleged email was with a request to release advertisements in favour of an English newspaper. Similarly, fake emails and fake letters were sent to ONGC and GAIL for advertisement support in favour of another newspaper. Through the IP address analysis and human intelligence, we identified the accused as Manoj Kumar Seth,"
The police said that during the course of the investigation, the fake email ID was identified and its contents were analysed to understand the motive of the fake email.
"The email was with the request to release advertisement in favour of English newspaper. Similarly, fake emails and fake letters were sent to ONGC and GAIL for advertisement support in favour of another newspaper. Through the IP Address analysis and human intelligence, alleged Manoj Kumar Seth was identified," said police.
Police said the accused's plan had not been successful and that he had been continuously changing his hideouts. Though several raids were conducted at his possible hideouts, he managed to escape every time.
"On January 28, 2022, the luck of accused Manoj Kumar ran out and the hard work of the team paid results and the accused Manoj Kumar was arrested from Bhubaneshwar," the police said.
During interrogation, the accused Manoj Kumar revealed that he is a freelance journalist and also publishes his newspaper fortnightly. He had created the fake email and prepared the forged letters to seek advertisement in favour of his local newspaper.
He is also involved in a case of extortion registered against him at Chaliya Ganj Police Station in Cuttack on the complaint of an executive engineer of the public works department in Odisha.
A case was registered under appropriate sections of law and investigation was taken up.
Further investigation is in progress.
( With inputs from ANI )
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