Mumbai police arrest a man with a fake PMO card and his armed guard

Mumbai police arrested two men at Jio World Plaza in Bandra Kurla Complex on 8 September after one of them presented a card that named him as a Prime Minister's Office official. The second man was carrying a revolver. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was due at the same complex that evening to open the Global Fintech Fest at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre.

Police named the card-holder as Rohan Parekh in some statements and Roshan Parekh in others. Ages in the first reports ranged from 24 to 28. He is described as running a drone business. The guard is Dilip Kunde, 49. Kunde triggered a metal detector. He called Parekh back to the entrance. Parekh then showed a digital identity card that called him a "Grade C official" of the PMO.

Officers said the card listed an issue date and no validity period. The signature block did not name a designation. Those two gaps were enough for the card to be treated as suspect. Crime Branch later said it was fake. Kunde's firearm was licensed. Both men were arrested. Parekh was remanded to police custody until 11 September. An FIR has been registered. Early police language spoke of three men forcing their way in. Later briefings settled on two arrests.

Parekh's lawyer has said his client was offered what he believed was a real advisory role and that he is a victim of a wider fraud. Police have not accepted that as the end of the file. They are asking who printed or generated the card, who told him to walk into a high-security venue on the day of a prime ministerial visit, and whether anyone else was involved. Officials also said they do not, at this stage, link the pair to a plot against the visit itself.

The venue is the reason the arrests travelled. BKC was already under a thick security layer for Modi's evening event and for the rest of the four-day fintech gathering. A man with a government-looking card and a companion with a gun is the exact combination that special protection units train to stop. The fact that the gun was licensed does not close the impersonation question. A licensed weapon in the hands of a man standing behind a fake PMO card is still a breach of the screening line.

Modi went on to open the fest. The political cost of a real breach would have been immediate. The operational cost is a review of how a digital card without an expiry date got as far as the detector. Airport and city checks were tightened after the first alert, according to local reports, then eased once the two men were in custody.

Impersonation of PMO staff is not a new trick. What is new in this case is the combination of a Grade C label, a licensed firearm and a venue that was hours away from a prime minister. The custody until 11 September gives Crime Branch three days to decide whether Parekh was a dupe with expensive stationery or the front of a longer chain. The card, the phone and the person who told him to come to BKC are the three items that will decide which of those stories survives.