‘Shocked to find that Arumugam had trained us’

COIMBATORE: As news spread about the death of a 19-year-old undergraduate student during a disaster preparedness drill by an imposter, faculty and students of another private city college were shocked to find they were also trained by G Arumugam last year.
Recalling the drill, retired principal of Suguna College of Engineering GP Rajamani said Arumugam sounded ‘real’ when he told them that he was a training officer with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and said he had conducted training programmes at more than 3,000 colleges across six states.
“He was too perfect in handling us that we didn’t feel any suspicion.”
Arumugam approached the college through a local coordinator - Dhamodharan who introduced himself as a government employee - to conduct the disaster preparedness drill on September 23 2017, he said. “Arumugam said he was fluent in six languages, including Oriya and Hindi.”
Projecting himself as a differently abled person to motivate the students, he gave a power-point presentation about the dos and don’ts to be followed during a disaster, said another official from the college. “Arumugam, however, did not reveal much about his disability.”
During the post-lunch training, his assistant Jeslin demonstrated a few activities, including rope climbing, Rajamani said. “He also tried rope climbing, saying he had prior interest in that.”
All the three - Arumugam, Dhamodharan and Jeslin - said they were central government employees who earn more than 50,000 a month, he said.
“His visiting card had his designation as training officer (Government of India), Tamil Nadu. We believed him and let him train our students without a second thought,” Rajamani said, adding, “More than 100 students and faculty members paid Rs 50 each to obtain a certificate, which Arumugam said would have value during placement.”
Without any delay, the students were issued the ‘emergency preparedness’ certificate, the college authority said. The certificate read it was presented by NDMA, India, and signed by training officer, disaster management authority, south range, Tamil Nadu.
“He demanded no money from the management,” the official said, adding, “Since the training provided some useful insight about the disaster management, we had recommended him to other colleges as well.”