AHMEDABAD: It’s not unusual for men to go to extreme lengths to impress their wives. But what if the grand plan involves posing as a secret agent? A 31-year-old man from Gandhinagar wouldn’t have reckoned that his audacious charade would go horribly wrong and that his run would end at the police station.

On Tuesday evening, Gunjan Kantiya walked into the Jagatpur office of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on SP Road while his wife waited in their car parked outside. The plan was to set her doubts to rest and ‘prove’ to her that Kantiya was indeed a secret service agent. Evidently, Kantiya had underestimated the calibre and sharpness of real officers who immediately identified his ID as fake and later presented him to the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) headquarters nearby.
The NIA officer who brought Kantiya to the ATS informed officers here of his real identity. A resident of Aalloa village in Gandhinagar’s Mansa taluka and a native of Amreli, Kantiya runs a visa consultancy firm in Mansa.

Giving details of the case, Inspector J B Agrawat of Sola police said that Kantiya’s wife was not convinced by his claims of working with the NIA. “On Tuesday evening he told her that he would take her for an outing but before that he would have to stop at his office for a while. To make it all look real, he parked their car outside the NIA office but was caught when he tried to enter,” Inspector Agrawat said, adding that Kantiya had been using the forged card for around four years.
“The forged ID card showed his name, the date of issuance as March 14, 2018, and his rank as sub-inspector (deputation),” stated the FIR filed by Gujarat ATS PSI KB Desai. It was found that Kantiya had other fake IDs, too from various government departments.
According to Agrawat, Kantiya told his wife that the other IDs were just a cover-up for his ‘real job’ as an NIA secret agent.
One ID showed him as a junior town planner (IAS grade-2) in Government of India’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. The joining date mentioned on it was February 18, 2021. Another ID mentioned him as a deputy executive engineer in Gujarat government’s Road and Building Department, added the FIR.
Police said Kantiya had downloaded the logos and signature of high-ranking officers in NIA and other government departments to forge the IDs. During preliminary questioning, Kantiya told cops that he had used these cards at many places to get work done and to stay in circuit houses.
The case is similar to an incident from March wherein the accused Kiran Patel posed as an IAS officer to avail Z+ security in Kashmir valley.