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A man posed as Superintendent of Police (SP), called up a subordinate police official and asked him to get his mobile phone repaired or face the consequences. But, his bluff was later called and the man landed in lockup.

Azamgarh SP Triveni Singh said the 23-year-old youth, Shubham Upadhyay, is the son of a farmer. He was preparing for competitive exams when his phone developed a snag on Saturday. He tried to reach out to local mechanics, but they were unavailable to fix it due to the lockdown.

Upadhyay used a free caller identification app to call up the in-charge of the Kotwali police station, K. K. Gupta, and threatened to shunt him out, if he failed to swiftly get the work done. Gupta grew suspicious and eventually caught the youth.

n his statement to the police, Shubham Upadhyay said, "On Sunday noon, I tried to breach the district borders to reach Lucknow to repair my phone, but since there was heavy police presence and barricading, I returned home. Later, I installed a free caller identification app in my handset and mentioned the name as SP Azamgarh and even uploaded a photo of the cop to appear genuine."

He first called SHO, Kotwali to get the phone repaired and was told the handset would be picked up from the SP office in an hour. Then, he called a businessman to bring his SUV and hand over his mobile to the SHO.

But when Upadhyay called the police again to suggest a separate meeting point, he raised suspicion. When the SHO tried to confirm the venue, Upadhyay got hesitant and said he would send a peon.

"I suddenly realised something was fishy and rang up the public relation officer of SP Azamgarh, who denied any such order from the SP. When the caller's number was scanned, it displayed the name of SP Azamgarh," said SHO Gupta.

A trap was laid and when the SHO reached the venue, he found one Praveen Shukla sitting in the vehicle. Police got the address of the accused from Shukla and reached Upadhyay's home in Bilariya locality and arrested him.

Upadhyay has been booked under IT Act and for threatening a public servant.

May 12: A Madhya Pradesh Police sub-inspector was fined Rs 5,000 after he performed a daredevil act of balancing himself on two moving cars, copying the famous stunt from Ajay Devgn-starrer 'Singham'.

Manoj Yadav, the in-charge of Narsinghgarh police post in Damoh district, was also warned against any such daredevilry in future, police sources said on Monday.

Sporting shades as the hero of the cop drama film and wearing his police uniform, Yadav got the entire episode video-graphed, they said.

As the video of the stunt went viral on social media, senior police officials took serious note of it as it will send wrong signals to youngsters, the sources said.

Inspector General, Sagar range, Anil Sharma directed Damoh Superintendent of Police Hemant Chauhan to probe the matter.

After an investigation, Chauhan imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on the sub-inspector and warned him not to repeat such mistakes.

Kochi, Mar 24: A 54-year-old domestic passenger was arrested at the airport here for allegedly refusing to follow instructions given by doctorsfor prevention of the spread of novel coronavirus, police said here on Tuesday.

Lami Arackal from Ernakulam, who landed from Chennai at the Cochin International Airport at Nedumbassery on Monday night, was arrested based on a complaint from health officials, they said.

He was, however, later released on bail.

Arackal allegedly refused to wear mask and follow other instructions to be observed by the passengers coming from other states as part of the measures to check COVID-19 spread.

He also allegedly misbehaved with the medical officers, police said.