Youth held for conning college as IAS officer

CHENNAI: A 20-year-old student of a leading business school posed as an IAS officer and undertook inspection of an engineering college at Sriperumbudur on Tuesday. His cover blown away, the youth is now behind bars. His take: he did the con act for “fun”.On Tuesday, the principal of Rajiv Gandhi College of Engineering in Sriperumbudur received an ‘IAS officer’, A Janakiraman, bearing a missive written on the letterhead of the chief secretary of the Tamil Nadu government. “The letter stated that Janakiraman was an approved inspection authority,” DSP Gajendra Kumar told Express.The principal immediately conducted Janakiraman around the college, showed him the various departments and also served him lunch, the officer said. After completing the inspection, Janakiraman took leave, leaving behind a contact address in Anna Nagar.Later, the principal reported the inspection to the higher authorities, who called up government officials for verification, the police officer said. On being told that they had not authorised anybody to inspect the college, the principal lodged a complaint with the Sriperumbudur police.A special team zeroed in on the conman with the help of their Anna Nagar counterparts and grilled him. A native of Cuddalore district, “smart-looking” Janakiraman was a first-year BCA student at Acharya school of Business and Technology in Puducherry, the DSP said. “The youth took a printout of the letterhead from the Tamil Nadu government website - www.tn.gov.in - and wrote the letter himself,” he claimed.Asked why he did the conact, the youth reportedly claimed: “For fun.