A man from Gujarat’s Vadodara city was on Friday arrested for posing as an official from the Prime Minister’s Office to get two of his friend’s children admitted to a private school, PTI reported.

The accused person, identified as Mayank Tiwari, passed himself off as a director of strategic advisory and director of government advisory in the Prime Minister’s Office in New Delhi, an official from Waghodia police station in Vadodara told the news agency.

According to the first information report, the 45-year-old had also persuaded Gitika Patel, a trustee of Vadodara’s Parul University, to consider making a huge investment in education projects, The Indian Express reported.

In March last year, Tiwari had approached the New Era School seeking admission for the two children. He claimed their father was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Indian Army and was being transferred to Vadodara from Pune, according to a complaint by a staff member of the school.

The school’s director had asked Tiwari to meet Patel, who is also the trustee of the school, the police said.

During their meeting, Tiwari reportedly told her that he could use his clout as a PMO officer to get the school involved in the field of education research and bag several projects if she took care of the expenses, the official from Waghodia police station told PTI.

While he succeeded in securing admission for his friend’s children, Patel had not paid any money to him.

After a private investigation, she found out that Tiwari had conned her and the school administration by spinning a tale about his “immense influence”.

According to the FIR, the authorities could not find out his professional details. “By providing a fake identity of a government official, not only did he attempt to be an impostor to cheat our trustee and cause financial loss, but also attempted to damage the country’s image with a criminal conspiracy,” the FIR added.

Vadodara Superintendent of Police Rohan Anand told The Indian Express that Tiwari had admitted during the investigation that he used a fake identity to help friends during the coronavirus pandemic.

“He has been working in consultancy firms and has the knack of convincing people,” the officer said. “He has told us that he began using the fake identity during the Covid-19 pandemic to get oxygen and beds for his friends and it worked...Later, he also started using the identity for other benefits.”

The accused, he added, has been living in Vadodara since his childhood and his father had retired as an officer from public sector telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited.

Tiwari has been booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating) and 170 (impersonating a public servant).

He is the second person from Gujarat to have been arrested in recent months for claiming to be an official from the Prime Minister’s Office.

In March, the Jammu and Kashmir Police arrested a man named Kiran Bhai Patel for allegedly impersonating an additional director for strategy and campaigns in the Prime Minister’s Office.

The authorities said that he got facilities normally given to officials from the Prime Minister’s Office, including a bulletproof car, security personnel and official accommodation at a five-star hotel in the Union Territory.

On March 23, the chief judicial magistrate, Srinagar, Raja Mohammad Tasleem denied bail to the alleged conman. The judge observed that it was “spectacularly evident” that he prima facie forged some documents to deceive not just one person but an “extremely elevated class of the society including high officials of the civil administration and police authorities”.

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