Three men carrying a fake police identity card were arrested at a check-post set up behind the high-security Pathankot Air Force Station on late night Sunday.
Those nabbed have been identified as Billa, Sairajdeen and Billa, who hail from different villages of Hoshiarpur district.
SSP Daljinder Singh Dhillon, however, discounted the theory that the men were caught from near the defence establishment. “The air force station is at quite a distance. Some unscrupulous elements are trying to create panic by making false claims. Action will be taken against rumour mongers,” said the SSP.
An officer on duty where the accused were asked to halt, said, “The accused claimed that they had found Constable Sunir Sharma’s ID card from a petrol station near the Sally Road in Pathankot. They were using the document to hoodwink toll plazas in the area. They were travelling in a car when they were asked to stop at a check-post at Naushera Nabanda village near the air force station around 11 pm.”
“During questioning, the driver identified himself as Constable Sunir Sharma and claimed that he and his colleagues were on a ‘covert intelligence assignment’. However, on close scrutiny, we noticed a glaring discrepancy. The face of the driver did not match the photograph of Sharma. That was a sure give-away,” he said.
The officer said they also got suspicious when the two colleagues of the driver failed to show their ID cards despite claiming that they were from the Police Department. “When we inspected Constable Sharma’s ID card, it turned out to be a clever case of forgery. That was when we decided to take all three into custody,” he said.
SSP Dhillon said probe was underway into the matter. “We do not want to take any risk. The three wilted under sustained interrogation. The suspects used to evade toll-plazas and also used forged documents to hoodwink policemen on duty at check-points,” added a senior officer.
A case has been registered at the Sadar police station.
The arrests have come barely days after twin blasts rocked the state, sending the police establishment into a frenzy. The explosions had occurred outside the BSF campus in Jalandhar and at the army area Khasa in Amritsar district.
