Sacked Bengali soldier charms and cons

Srinagar, June 16: He may not have charmed and conned them quite like “bikini-killer” Charles Sobhraj, but he’s been regularly infiltrating army lairs and fooling soldiers out of their money in as brazen a style.

Sacked soldier Krishnendu Sarkar, from Bengal’s Birbhum district, has been arrested from 213 Transit Camp in Jammu for sweet-talking army personnel into parting with money or plain stealing it after making his way in on a fake ID-card.

“He was carrying some other soldier’s identity card on which he had superimposed his own picture. He used to steal money from soldiers in the camp and we have arrested him,” station house officer Subhash Chander, Trikuta Nagar police station, said.

Police sources said Sarkar took to impersonating as a soldier and wielding his charm-and-con strategy soon after his release from jail in 2002. He had been a sepoy in the Signals Regiment in Bhopal but was court-martialled and given a two-year term for misappropriating funds in 1998.

“He had misappropriated funds there,” defence spokesperson Lt Col S.D. Goswami said. “Later, he was dismissed from service and awarded two years’ imprisonment.”

It is not known how many camps Sarkar has infiltrated so far but police sources said he had been operating on the identity card he had stolen from a soldier during a train journey.

An army source said his ploy was to masquerade as a jawan and plead with the soldiers that he was badly in need of funds as he was going home.

If the soldiers shooed him off without swallowing his bait, he would start harassing them for a loan. If that tactic too didn’t work, he would steal the money and flee the camp, the source added.

Sarkar’s luck, however, ran out when he tried the same trick at the 213 Transit Camp at Panama Chowk in Trikuta Nagar. He apparently landed last Friday and informed the camp in-charge that he was posted at Rajouri and was heading home on leave.

“When he asked some soldiers for money, they became suspicious. His identity card was checked, and it appeared to have been tampered with,” the army source said.

A police officer said Sarkar would visit transit camps in various states, including Jammu and Kashmir, and spend weeks there.

“Not only would he avail himself of all the facilities, but wherever he got an opportunity he used to steal money as well. It is strange how he could do all this in highly secured places,” the officer said.

Sarkar is being questioned by the police.