Posing as ex-IPS, advisor in Home Ministry: How Delhi man tried to con police

On November 14, the Public Relation Officer (PRO) of DCP Trans Hindon, Neeraj Rathore, received a phone call. The caller introduced himself as Anil Katiyal, a retired IPS officer of the 1979 batch of Manipur cadre. He also said that he worked as an advisor to the Union Home Ministry.
From saying he had been an Intelligence Bureau officer to dropping big names, the caller left no stone unturned to exert pressure on Rathore to end proceedings against Vinod Kapoor, his friend.
Later, a police probe against Katiyal revealed that nothing he said about himself, except his name, was true.
Katiyal, the 68-year-old resident of Greater Kailash-1 in Delhi, made up a bunch of lies and tried to corner the Ghaziabad Police by accusing them of illegally detaining his friend.
Anil Katiyal worked as a senior official at Vodafone and had connections with several IAS, IPS, and other senior officers. His father had served as an IRS officer and his cousin was also a police officer, which got him acquainted with several big names.
According to the police, he is an alumnus of the St Stephen’s College, University of Delhi and during his time at the college, he made friends with several UPSC aspirants. He earlier worked as Vice President in Corporate Affairs in Vodafone, and also got to know many senior officials then.
Taking advantage of all these contacts, Anil Katiyal often claimed to be a 1979-batch IPS officer and started fraudulently getting work done by various government departments as a broker and liaison, police said.
When police scanned some of Katiyal’s WhatsApp chats, they found out that he had once claimed that he was an ex-batchmate of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

Amit Katiyal’s WhatsApp chat was retrieved by the police.

Anil Katiyal’s 69-year-old friend Vinod Kapoor is accused in a fraud case. In an attempt to secure his release, Anil Katiyal called up PRO Neeraj Rathore on November 14 and alleged that the case registered against Vinod Kapoor was fake.
Katiyal also threatened the officials of Ghazibad’s Indirapuram Police Station of filing a case against the police under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Section 140 (1), which carries the punishment of life imprisonment.
The GK-1 resident also met the Ghaziabad Police Chief, Ajay Kumar Mishra, and other senior police officials to affect the probe against Kapoor, police said. It was his insistence to take a picture with Mishra that raised suspicion against the claims of Katiyal, following which a probe was launched against him.
In its probe against Katiyal, the police found that no IPS officer named Amit Katiyal was part of the 1979-batch IPS batch.
After the police investigation, both Katiyal and his friend were arrested by the police under relevant sections of the BNS.
Speaking on the case, Ghaziabad’s Additional Commissioner of Police (ACP), Dinesh Kumar P, said, “Both have been arrested today, and further information about the two accused is being gathered by the police.”
While Anil Katiyal was arrested in Delhi, Vinod Kapoor was arrested in Gurugram.
The police lodged an FIR against Katiyal and Kapoor under sections 308 (extortion), 221 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 204 (personating a public servant) and 318 (cheating) of the BNS.