He pretends to be the missing child of a wealthy family for 41 years

Identity theft. The BBC recently returned to the incredible story of a man, Kameshwar Singh, and his missing son. It all started in 1977, when the son of this wealthy northeast Indian landowner never came home from school. Devastated, the young man’s father suddenly found hope when, in 1981, rumors arose of the arrival of a young beggar boy in the nearby village claiming to be “the son of an important person”. It was accompanied by some neighbors that Kameshwar Singh went to the village in question, where everyone recognized his son. According to police reports, the father said at the time: “My eyes fail me and I can’t see him very well. If you say he’s my son, then I’ll keep him”. The mother of the missing young boy who was then on a trip hastened to return but, on the spot, faced a cruel disappointment.

According to her, the young man brought back by her husband was not their son Kanhaiya Singh, and she could prove it. Her son had a cut mark on the left side of his head, missing from the man claiming to be. Moreover, the young man was unable to recognize one of the schoolmistresses of the missing young man. Faced with this imposture, the mother of the family filed a complaint and the man was jailed for a month before being released on bail. But it doesn’t stop there. On his release from prison, the man kept this identity of the young missing boy to enroll in university, get married and start a family. In addition to that of Kanhaiya Singh, the identity thief was using multiple other identities to quietly make a living. For four decades, the man therefore pretended to be a missing child, which also allowed him to sell plots of land from his “father” thanks to his surname.

Sentenced more than 40 years after the start of his crime

The main cause of this very long scam is, in addition to the clear guilt of the usurper, the heartbreaking slowness of Indian justice which, again according to the BBC, has over 50 million cases in progress across the country. And of those 50 million, more than 180,000 cases were opened more than 30 years ago. This therefore explains that, even if it was in the 80s that the man began to pretend to be someone else, it was only very recently that he was finally really arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison for impersonation and conspiracy.