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Mumbai: It is easy to impersonate as a gazetted officer or a high-ranking professional of a private firm, thanks to unlicenced hawkers and online platforms. Hindustan Times came across lanyards, which string official identity cards, being sold with impunity under the Elphinstone bridge recently. The trade is carried out by similar hawkers elsewhere in the city as well. Army Medal
The hawker HT spotted on Wednesday had a batch of lanyards of different government organisations and public sector banks, such as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Maharashtra Government, Indian Railways and State Bank of India – each piece priced at ₹ 50.
A casual conversation with the hawker revealed the easily availability of these unauthorised items in the market. Fake lanyards were made available and much sought out during the lockdown months. People used them to travel to Mumbai in local trains, when only employees associated with essential services were allowed to travel for work.
An Andheri-based businessman, who runs a printing press, explained that lanyards are printed using the ‘sublimation machine’ or ‘lanyard printing machine’, and that they should not be printed without official approvals on paper. “When such a stock has to be printed, we ask the officials for a formal letter and again run checks before printing. Only organisations can have them printed for their employees. I am surprised to learn that they are so easily sold in the market,” he said, choosing to withhold his name.
He added that when asked to print make-believe samples for film shoots, the name of the organisation is tweaked on the lanyard. “Instead of ‘Bank of India’, we say ‘Children’s Bank of India.’ Sometimes we put a disclaimer in small print stating ‘for shooting purposes only’. That is the common practice,” he said.
This newspaper also came across certain e-commerce portals selling lanyards for government identity cards – Government of Kerala and Government of India.
Tanaji Kamble, public relations officer at BMC said, “The civic body is taking action against such sellers at ward level. These are illegal acts.”
It is not surprising then how a spate crimes, where wrongdoers pose as designated officers to rob unsuspecting citizens, are common. On Wednesday, HT reported a case of a 31-year-old man who was arrested by Mumbai Police on January 9, for allegedly posing as a cop and threatening a couple sitting on their parked vehicle near Sardar Tarasingh Talav, along the Eastern Express Highway, Mulund (East). The accused – identified as Navnath Maruti Shinde -- was booked under sections 170 (personating a public servant) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal code (IPC).
Badge Maker Advocate Trivankumar Karnani, criminal litigation lawyer at Bombay high court, said, “Such illegal and unauthorised sale of government I-card lanyards is prohibited and a person can be prosecuted under various sections of the IPC and also under section 3, of the State Emblem of India (Prohibition of Improper Use) Act, 2005, which prohibits improper use of emblem.”