He is a MBA and BPharma graduate and allegedly printed a fake appreciation letter supposedly received from former President Pranab Mukherjee to digitally market his book was arrested by the Delhi Police’s cyber cell on Thursday.
Police said he was arrested from Bengaluru, almost a year after they received a complaint from Rashtrapati Bhawan. Police said the accused Hari Krishna Maram,48, a Bengaluru resident, had fled to the US to evade arrest and had returned to India recently.
According to police, in early 2017, they received a complaint about Maram using a fake appreciation letter with the former President’s name on it.
The accused, Hari Krishna Maram, aged between 45-50, was in the US for more than a year but returned to Bengaluru this month and was arrested by Cyber Crime Cell of Delhi Police on Wednesday, they added.
The case was being investigated by sub-inspector Bhanu Pratap of the cyber cell after a complaint was filed by the president’s press secretary last year.
Maram had allegedly posted the photo of an “appreciation letter” received from the president for a book he had authored on digital marketing, said an officer privy to the probe.
The letter was fake and Maram had posted the letter to gain publicity and more eyeballs for the book he had supposedly written, the officer said.
At the time of the registration of the case, Maram was in the US and was contacted but he did not join investigation.
A city court had issued a non-bailable warrant against him and police had even initiated proceedings to declare him a proclaimed offender, he added.
Deputy commissioner of police (cyber cell) Anyesh Roy said Maram had been booked under sections 466 (forgery of record of court or of public register, etc) 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 477 (fraudulent cancellation, destruction, etc., of will, authority to adopt, or valuable security) of the Indian Penal Code.
He was produced in a city court yesterday that sent him to judicial custody. Police have seized the laptop computer used to prepare the forged letter and have sent it for forensic examination.
