The Surat Crime Branch on Wednesday arrested tutor Mitul Trivedi after he gave a media interview claiming that he was an ISRO scientist who designed Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander. Trivedi forged documents and a letter to further his claim. According to the police, Trivedi — who has been giving tuition classes to students of class 12 and onwards — admitted that he created the letter because he felt that if he showed such a letter to the parents of the students, he would be able to register more students for his class.
In support of his claim, Trivedi produced a fake ISRO appointment letter dated February 26, 2022 claiming to be the Assistant Chairman of ISRO’s Ancient Science Applications Division. He forged another letter in which Trivedi claimed to be a “space research member” for ISRO’s upcoming project “Mercury Power in Space”.
Speaking to reporters, Surat Additional Commissioner of Police Sharad Singhal said that a petition was submitted to the Commissioner of Police requesting an inquiry into the matter.
In an initial response, ISRO informed the crime branch that the letter was fake and no such letter had been issued by the space research agency. ISRO will submit a detailed response to the Surat police in a few days, Singhal said.
The fake letter comes in light of ISRO’s successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 at the moon’s south pole and continuing its moon mission. ISRO is also set to launch its first Sun mission Aditya-L1 this week
Earlier on August 24, a day after Chandraya-3 landed on the moon, posing as an ISRO scientist, Trivedi said in an interview to news agency PTI, “We felt like we were on the moon, it was the proudest moment.”
Singhal said, “Crime branch called Mitul Trivedi to his Chowkbazar office and interrogated him in detail yesterday. Today, it has been established and he too has admitted that the letter is fake.”
Trivedi claims to have B.Com and M.Com degrees but the police is yet to verify it. An FIR has been registered against Trivedi under sections 465, 468, 471 and 419 of the IPC.
