Sometimes facts are far more alluring and enticing than fiction, and human ingenuity can be easily defeated by feats which may go beyond what we can possibly conjure. While indomitable courage and indefatigable confidence in oneself may form part of any adventurous tour-de-force and thrillers, but in reality they may be hard to find. When we come across such a person in flesh and blood, we are left speechless. But a man who had shot like a meteor in the socio-political firmament and soaring ever higher, suddenly found himself flat on the ground, licking the soil.

Fake news has been part of the modern times, accelerated by the social media, and it is an uphill task to sift the fact from the fake, because the fake is often presented in such a manner that all our senses maybe befooled. But what happens if fake persons become cause of factual news? And who ever thought that it is very hard to impersonate and use fake identity in this virtual world?

Debanjan Deb, 28, has suddenly become a household name in West Bengal and the story of the 'inventor' of a vaccine for Covid from Bengal reads like a recently released Hindi blockbuster. There are twists and turns, though the lady behind the success of the young man who walked around with his fake Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer identity is not evident yet.

If there had been one man in the recent past who had ventured into the arduous path of decoding myths associated with the coveted IAS, and show in black and white, it is not impossible to impose oneself as an IAS officer, and get all the benefits associated with it, at the very nose of the people who are supposed to keep a check on such imposters: it was Deb.

Open the Facebook account of Deb (the account strangely has not been removed yet), and you have several photo posts of himself and sometimes with his friends, his supporting some cultural groups. The same applies to his Twitter account too. But look at the intro of the account holder, and it reads, "Studies Public Administration at Indian Institute of Public Administration" and there is already something fishy, because the year stated is 2012, and there is no mention about when he completed the course and took charge as an IAS officer at Nabanno, West Bengal Chief Minister's office in Howrah.

The self-attested IAS officer, who had an important office in Kolkata Municipal Corporation, had run free Covid vaccination camps, and it probably did not occur to him that one of his giant stunts to rope in popular figures would put the noose round his neck, instead of bringing more accolades. But we are yet to know the after-effects of the over 2,000 fake vaccines already administered by Deb.

The Facebook page states that he graduated in Zoology from Charuchandra College in Kolkata and took admission for a Masters degree in Genetics at Calcutta University, which he dropped midway, while looking for greener pastures to enhance his career. That is when he came up with the idea of attempting the most-coveted positions in the country -- the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), which is a herculean task for a mediocre backbencher that Deb had been during his school days at Taki House School near Sealdah in Kolkata.

As one may guess, Deb could not crack the competitive Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) preliminary examinations, but had told his parents that he cracked the examination successfully and was invited to join the IAS training in Mussoorie. He spent two years out of home, in the name of training to be an IAS officer, while spending the years with an event management group. To add a few other feathers to his blooming career, Deb had brought out a few albums of songs. In 2017, he was back in the City of Joy with good news to his parents, his father being a deputy collector of the state excise department, that he had completed the training and has been posted at the state secretariat, Nabanno, under the very nose of Didi.

The pandemic gave him the much needed boost to his 'business' with IAS suffix at the end of his name. He began to purchase in bulk sanitisers, masks, gloves and personal protective equipment (PPE) and rented a few rooms at a club in central Kolkata. It is from here he began to make quick money, selling the much needed commodities at a much higher price. In order to win the goodwill of the police, municipal corporation and members of the Legislative Assembly and Parliament, he began to distribute freely sanitisers, masks, gloves and PPEs. He made sure that he did such donations and free distributions in the presence of prominent leaders.

Now Deb had added another feather to his IAS: this time as a social worker. The 'public servant' engaged in social work was something that people gulped without an iota of suspicion. The general public witnessed a young IAS officer who was involved in such noble tasks as alleviating the sufferings of people at the time of crisis.

Simultaneously Deb also rented a house in Kasba in southern Kolkata and made it into his office to run parallel offices of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. In order to make people believe that he was indeed a high official of the Corporation, he got made fake letterheads, identity cards and seals. Then he did what many of the hackers are good at: while the official website of Kolkata Municipal Corporation was kmcgov.in, Deb's parallel website was kmcgov.org, which incidentally had been shut down after the controversy erupted.

He had named his parallel municipal corporation 'Urban Planning and Development' with fake documents. The interrogating officers have revealed that Deb had several fake documents bearing fake KMC logos, and had writing pads with state government's Biswa Bangla logo, one which had been created by Mamata Banerjee.

Deb's downfall began when he unwittingly invited Trinamool Congress Member of the Parliament and actress Mimi Chakraborty on June 21 to take the anti-Covid jab at one of the free vaccination camps he had organized for transgender and differently-abled persons at Kasba. The actress might have felt something amiss after taking the jab and felt suspicious. She alerted the Kolkata Municipal Corporation officials who found Deb an imposter and was soon arrested.

It is hard to imagine how Deb had missed a vital point which is part of government's vaccination program. Once a person had registered with central government's CoWin portal for vaccination, which is an essential step before vaccination, the details are added to the government's database of persons registered for and received vaccination. On receiving the jab, an automated message is sent to the registered person about the vaccination administered. In a day or two, the person also receives a certification of vaccination from CoWin portal. It appears Deb had not taken care to fill this gap, and on not receiving the confirmation or certification, the actress had filed a case with the police, who busted the whole operation.

What is worrying the ruling TMC is that Deb had been seen alongside some of the most prominent leaders of the party, proof of which are the photos Deb had posted on his twitter handle. But the government is tight-lipped regarding Deb and the vaccination scam, which is rocking the political circles in the state. As one may expect, Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP, who had been an erstwhile lieutenant of Mamata Banerjee, has claimed that the TMC is working hand-in-glove with Deb in the vaccination scam. The state chief of BJP, Dilip Ghosh, has requested a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the scam.

It should be noted that caught in the quark mire of politics and mudslinging, the government should not lose sight of the plight of about 2,000 people who had been administered Amicacin anti-biotic instead of Covid vaccine. So far no one has tried to find out what sort of side effects have been developed in people who had received the fake vaccine. Safeguarding the lives of these individuals should be the priority of the government as the law is taking its turn to bring Deb to face legal proceedings, not only on the basis of impersonation, cheating, forgery, but also on attempted murder of those who have been given fake vaccine.

The Kolkata Police constituted a Special Investigative Team (SIT) on June 25 to probe the vaccination scam and a public interest litigation has been filed in Calcutta High Court to initiate a probe into the matter. It may take quite some time for us to know the motives behind Deb's activities.

As of now, the police and sleuths are clueless as to what prompted Deb to organize free vaccination camps at his own expense, but inoculating people with antibiotic injections used for several bacteria. There is no chance for him to have tested what the aftermath of such antibiotic injected into the body. Did he do it intentionally to inflict pain and suffering on to people, or was it yet another stage-managed event to get public attention?

It would not be surprising if some of the custodians of law and order were hand-in-glove with the imposter; it is here that the general public needs to be alert so that those who wield power or who wish to wield power do not take the gullible for a ride. Ultimately we need to protect ourselves not only from the virus but also from the preying men and women who may prove to be far more dangerous than the virus.