Man in wheelchair posing as 81-year-old pensioner arrested at airport

A man was detained by the security officials at Delhi Airport over trying to travel on 81-year-old pensioner’s passport while posing as a senior citizen sitting in a wheelchair.

Reports said that the airport officials caught the man after noticing his oddly-coloured beard and fresh-looking skin and later they found him in a complete makeover to deceive them by appearing in white beard, oversized glasses and a wheelchair.

However, the bid to fool officers was foiled at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport at around 10.45pm last Sunday.

Dressed in a white tunic and trousers, with a white turban and black slippers, the man was hoping to get on an overnight flight to New York, Mirror.co.uk reported.

But staff began to get suspicious when the passenger appeared reluctant to be frisked.

Shrikant Kishore, a senior official with the Central Industrial Security Force, told CNN: “He posed as if he was very old and incapacitated,”.

“Our screener asked the person in the wheelchair to stand. He said that he cannot stand. Our screener asked if he would stand with support. He reluctantly stood up.”

That was when the officer noticed that the roots of the passenger’s white beard were black. He was also apparently trying hard to avoid the officer’s eyes.

When asked for his passport, the individual handed over documentation claiming he was Amrick Singh, born in Delhi on February 1938, making him 81 years old.

“He was definitely not 80 years old. His skin was of a younger person,” Mr Kishore said.