Reportedly a 25-year-old man has been arrested for posing as a newspaper photojournalist to attend a page 3 party at a five-star hotel in the Delhi on Thursday. The police have nabbed him from the venue.
As per the police, the man, Ashish John was a habitual gatecrasher at high profile events, social events, and page 3 parties. He used to go to parties to click photos with celebrities and famous people.
He was arrested after the hotel guards identified him from a photo they had earlier been given by the police. The deputy of the police commissioner of police said “John would eat and drink at the venues, take photos with celebrities and sometimes steal from them. He has been at it for over two years.”
The police also said that in 2017, the accused was arrested red-handed stealing a mobile from the pocket of the guest.
Police also added that there had been several occasions that John was caught stealing in the social events but the host of the party did not take the matter legally as they thought that he was a member of the media fraternity.
Impersonator arrested…
Habitual gate crasher to all major PR and page 3 events in 5 star hotels in #NewDelhi impersonating as ‘Bombay Times photo journalist’… getting selfies clicked with celebs… one previous involvement of theft. pic.twitter.com/CEEtia4PGB— Madhur Verma (@IPSMadhurVerma) April 26, 2019
He claimed that he worked with a Delhi unit of Mumbai based newspaper and when the police Inquired about him being working them, the staffers were shocked to learn about the crime and said he never worked with them.
According to the police, John does not even hold a degree in journalism. “He does not have parents and lives in west Delhi’s Moti Nagar. He got hold of a camera and began attending events at various hotels and was a regular visitor at the Constitution Club and the Press Club in Delhi,” an investigator in the case, said.
He has described himself as a Bollywood fashion photographer and mentioned the newspaper as his employer.
The police got to know about the inputs from other journalists who used to attend the parties.
“On Wednesday, he was attending an event organized by the media house he posed to be a photojournalist with, but the staffers realized the fraud. They then tipped off the police, but John left before he could be caught,” said another officer. But John’s photos had already been shared with the staffers of the hotels in New Delhi, he added.
“On Thursday evening, one of the guards at a five-star hotel realized that John was the same man in the photo shared a day earlier. He alerted the organizers of the event and the police. John was caught from the event’s venue. He had signed his real name, but had identified himself as the same newspaper’s photojournalist,” said the DCP.
Police have registered a case of cheating against the man and arrested him.
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