Fake CMO official on run since November held at Assam-Mizoram border

Vadodara: The accused, who escaped police custody after being booked for impersonating an official from the Gujarat chief minister’s office and committing rape, was nabbed on Monday near the Assam-Mizoram border after three weeks on the run.

The accused, Viraj Patel, was captured by the police near the Assam-Mizoram border and brought back to Vadodara on Monday, according to an official statement. Patel had fled from a court premises in Vadodara on November 10, prior to his appearance before a judge.

Arrested in April on charges of cheating, forgery, rape, and falsely representing himself as a public servant, Patel had been incarcerated as an undertrial in Vadodara central jail. It is alleged that he pretended to be an official from the Gujarat Chief Minister’s Office and the President of GIFT City.

The Vadodara crime branch issued a statement detailing the extensive efforts made to locate Patel, involving the scrutiny of 500 CCTV footage, the utilisation of technical surveillance and human intelligence, and covering a distance of approximately 7,000 km to trace him to the northeastern states, where he was attempting to cross the international border.

After leaving Gujarat, Patel traversed through Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Assam, and Tripura, ultimately hiding in Assam and Mizoram. The crime branch, having tracked him in Tripura, Assam, and Mizoram, formed teams to monitor him as he frequently changed his hideout. Eventually, the police succeeded in locating and arresting him somewhere along the Assam-Mizoram border, bringing him back to Vadodara. DeshGujarat