Gujarat man poses as ISRO scientist who designed Chandrayaan-3's lander module; held

The police in Gujarat’s Surat city on Tuesday arrested a man who allegedly posed as a scientist with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and gave interviews to the local media claiming that he designed the lander module for the Chandrayaan-3 moon mission, an official said.

A complaint was lodged against the accused Mitul Trivedi, after he was seen giving interviews to the local media since the Vikram lander successfully made soft landing on August 24, claiming to have designed the lander module of Chandrayaan-3, the official said.

Trivedi allegedly posed as the “assistant chairman” of ISRO’s “Ancient Science Application department” and even produced a fake appointment letter dated February 26, 2022, he said.

“A thorough investigation revealed that the man was in no way connected to ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 mission and had made false claims of being an ISRO employee,” the police said in a statement.

He even produced a fake letter about being the “space research member” for ISRO’s next project called “mercury force in space”, it said. He spread fake messages regarding ISRO despite not having contributed to the ambitious project, thereby harming the reputation of the institution, the statement read.

The Surat city crime branch lodged an FIR against the accused under sections 419 (cheating by impersonation), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), and 471 (using forged document as genuine) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), it was stated.