HYDERABAD: A 25-year-old civil services aspirant, notorious for faking his identity, was arrested on Thursday for posing as a National Investigation Agency ( NIA ) cop. He was caught thrice in the past two years in the Telugu states and has four cases registered against him.

Incidentally, posing as a cop, he used to get railway reservation, movie tickets, toll fee exceptions, VIP darshans at temples and demand concessions at shopping malls.

Task Force police arrested pseudo cop K Guru Vinod Kumar Reddy from his rented accommodation at Purshotham Appartments near Golconda Crossroads. “Vinod Kumar Reddy has been cheating his friends and relatives by introducing himself as additional superintendent of police, NIA,” Hyderabad police commissioner Anjani Kumar said.

Vinod, who had finished graduation from Venkateswara Arts & Science College, Giddalur of Prakasam district, in 2015, wanted to become a police officer. Vinod wrote the Civil services exam in 2016 and could not clear it. As friends and people from his village kept on asking him about his job, Vinod allegedly created a fake ID Card of an Air Force flying officer and showed it to his relatives and friends.

In 2017, Vinod came to Hyderabad and again prepared for Civils for eight months at a coaching institute at Ashok Nagar, but failed to crack even the prelims. After the prelims results were announced in 2017, Vinod told his friends and relatives that he had cleared the UPSC exam and became an IPS officer. He prepared a fake ID Card as an IPS officer and also created a fake call letter for training in the name of Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA). He was arrested by Giddalur police in 2017 for creating forged documents and sent to jail.

After coming out of prison, Vinod returned to Hyderabad. On January 1, 2019, he was arrested by the Neredmet police when he tried to enter the College of Defence Management (CDM) campus at Sainikpuri carrying a fake NIA ID Card.

Again after coming out of prison, he again enrolled for Civils coaching in an institute at Ashok Nagar posing as an Additional SP of NIA and befriended Major G Srinivasa Rao (Retd). While visiting Rao’s house, Vinod saw a toy pistol and assuming that it was a firearm, he stole it. After stealing the toy pistol, Vinod stopped meeting Rao. “The former major realised about the missing toy gun and enquired with the NIA about Vinod. He realised that Vinod was a fraud and lodged a complaint with Gandhi Nagar police,” the commissioner said.

