Man gets 3 years jail for impersonating A P J Abdul Kalam

Udupi: Udupi additional JMFC court judge Manjunath M S on Wednesday, December 13 sentenced a man convicted of impersonating former president of India A P J Abdul Kalam to three years rigorous imprisonment and a penalty of Rs 7,000.

The convict, Niranjan Chidananda Bhat, a resident of Mudabettu had begun using the former president’s name when he was still alive some nine years ago. Besides impersonation, Bhat had even forged the former president’s signature to mail recommendation letters through a fake id ‘apj_abdulkalam@in.co’ created at the cyber centre ‘Surf N View’ near Udupi Karavali Bypass.

It is learnt that Bhat had sent a congratulatory email to the President and had copied the signature from the letter sent by the President to thank him. 

Later, Bhat had through the fake email id sent a recommendation letter, bearing Dr Kalam’s forged signature, nominating himself for the American Engineers Organisation’s Hoover award. Another such letter was mailed to Goswami D Yogi in New York seeking details of a 50 MW solar thermal plant project. Bhat also attempted to hoodwink officials by trying to prove that all the documents he sent were genuine. 

On May 24, 2009 the then district CID police inspector Srinivas Raj lodged a complaint regarding the forgery post which investigations into the case were undertaken by I Ganesh Hedge, who subsequently filed a charge sheet.

The case was argued by the then public prosecutor Mamthaz and the present assistant public prosecutor Jayanti K.