Debanjan Deb was the epitome of success. The coveted IAS tag behind his name, a car with a blue light to ride, social media posts showing him posing with Kolkata’s power elite at various functions were all sham. When a statue of Tagore was unveiled in north Kolkata by a local library earlier this year, the plaque below listed the dignitaries who were or were involved in installing the statue. Deb’s name, along with a member of parliament, state legislators and other dignitaries, had the job description of ‘Joint Secretary’ to the Government of West Bengal.
To his classmates at Taki House School in the city, he was a backbench boy to be proud of. However, when news broke on television channels that Deb was a thug who had organized fake vaccination camps and deceived people that he was an IAS officer and a top Kolkata Municipal Corporation official, his friends and neighbors were stunned. .
Celebrities and politicians with whom she had posted pictures on social media started scrambling to distance herself from the man, who said, “Hum Debanjan, Debu ko baulata tha. He was a very mediocre student. A timid boy who never got into any mischief. When we heard that he had gone up in life, we were happy and proud who could imagine that he had actually turned into a smooth-talking thief,” said Deb’s classmate, at Taki House in Sealdah. , told PTI on condition of anonymity.
The classmate said, “It feels like a dream that broke down and turned into a nightmare. Now none of his friends or neighbors want to own up to being close to him. He has defamed us, our school to us anyone.” too hesitant to tell us that we know him,” said the friend anxiously.
His father Manoranjan Deb, a retired deputy collector of the state excise department, has fallen asleep in shock and refused to meet anyone, while the neighbors effectively boycott the family. Deb completed her graduation in Zoology from Charuchandra College and joined the University of Calcutta for a master’s degree in genetics, which she never completed.
Things took a new turn in 2014 when Deb appeared for civil services examinations. A police officer probing the cases against the 28-year-old thug said, “Debanjan could not clear the UPSC preliminary exam but told his parents that he had succeeded and would travel for probationary training.” His fake vaccination cameos in the form of murder have been injected on nearly 2,000 people, the effects of which are yet to be ascertained.
Instead of traveling to Mussoorie for his training, Deb went to work with an event management firm and came up with a few song albums during that stint. In 2017, he came back and told his parents that his training was over and he had secured a position in the state secretariat. Last year, after the outbreak of the pandemic, the young ‘IAS officer’ started buying sanitizers, masks, PPE, gloves and rented some rooms at a club in Taltala to run his business.
“He had made a good profit in the transaction of goods and in the process started meeting officers in-charge of several police stations, some politicians and other influential people,” the police officer said. He started donating consignments of masks, sanitisers and PPE kits, often in the presence of a local leader, to build rapport with politicians and top officials. Always he used to tell politicians, top bureaucrats and policemen that he was a social worker. Photos of such actions began to appear on his social media posts, which took note of the use of the word “public servant” to describe him.
Although he told the public at large that he was an IAS officer, he did not make this claim on his Facebook or Twitter accounts. He made a lot of efforts to establish his identity as a government official, printing fake letterheads and identity cards. Even fake email accounts resembling Kolkata Municipal Corporation accounts were opened. KMC uses kmcgov.in, Deb uses kmcgov.org.
Fake bank accounts were also opened using forged identity cards of Kolkata Corporation officials, which were used to route payments. He opened a new “Urban Planning and Development” company and set up an office in Kasba where his office resembled a KMC office.
“They not only printed several documents bearing fake KMC logo, but also managed to make writing pads with Biswa Bangla logo of the state government as well as holograms of the civic body,” the police officer said. Everything could have continued its course for some more time, but for her mistake in inviting actress and TMC MP Mimi Chakraborty to take an anti-Covid jab at one of the free vaccination camps run by her. . The actress suspected that it was fake for some reason and alerted the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. The officers, who soon learned that Deb was a fraudster, arrested him.
While the police officers probing him say that they understand his desire to make money through his company or to gain fake social standing as an IAS officer, they are still unaware that he has taken his money. Why did a “charitable free vaccination camp” make up for the expense? Psychologist Debashish Chakraborty, who has studied similar cases, says that there is a category of individuals who are willing to take the risk of getting into serious trouble just to get it. A kick from duping people.
“It is a form of joy to see people show you respect and attention, even in false ways. This appears to be true in Debanjan’s case,” Chakraborty told PTI. It seems that Deb posed as a social worker and started a free Covid-19 vaccination camp for all, said the psychologist. “They didn’t even care about it. Chakraborty said the medical risks associated with the injections of antibiotics such as amikacin, an antibiotic drug used for many bacterial infections, have been reported. He was desperate for fame that was not his.
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