The man was caught with a fake ID card of the captain of Lufthansa Airlines
A Delhi man has been arrested at the Indira Gandhi International Airport for posing as a pilot of Lufthansa airlines to dodge long queues and security checks, officials said on Tuesday.
Rajan Mahbubani, 48, was in a pilot's uniform when he was arrested from the departure gate of the airport on Monday. He was about to board an Air Asia flight to Kolkata, the police said.
He was handed over to the Delhi Police.
The CISF (Central Industrial Security Force) acted on the basis of information provided by the Chief Security Officer of the German airlines which said there is a "suspected passenger in the get-up of a captain of Lufthansa airlines."
Mahbubani, who lives in Delhi's Vasant Kunj area, also had a fake ID card of a Lufthansa Airlines pilot and he used it to extract privileges at airports, a senior CISF officer said.
"The passenger disclosed that he used to shoot YouTube videos on aviation and had obtained the Lufthansa fake ID card in Bangkok," the officer said.
During his interrogation, Mahbubani reportedly said he was fond of wearing uniforms of different professions and getting himself photographed.
There were pictures of him dressed as an army colonel on his phone. He had shot videos on TiKTok -- the social media app for recording and sharing short clips - wearing uniforms, the police said.
"Mahbubani said that he is a frequent traveller and used to dress up as a pilot to gain easy access during security clearance and get preferential treatment from security agencies and airlines," Deputy Commissioner of Police (IGI Airport) Sanjay Bhatia said.
He accessed the passage normally used by airline crew members for getting into aircraft.
Mahbubani even managed to get seat upgrades at times and used the modus operandi for a lot of his travels, the police officer said.