VIRUDHUNAGAR: Now, being tech savvy is not a crime. So, why did three persons from Chennai cool their heels behind the bars, you may ask. Well, for starters they sneaked past the policemen to reach Virudhunagar. And, that is where the story began. Suresh Babu (44), Natarajan (53), and Shanmugam (42) from Chennai reached the Alagapuri checkpoint in the district on Wednesday.

However, their forward journey was scuttled by the men in khaki, who demanded an epass. As the trio did not have one, they were turned back. However, the trio proved that it was not the one to accept defeat. They returned to the checkpoint hours later, but this time, armed with an e-pass.

How did they get hold of one at such short notice, you may wonder. And, that was precisely the doubt of the policemen manning the checkpoint. Their suspicion aroused, the policemen scrutinized the document, and that is when their bluff was called. The trio had forged a document using a PDF editor on their mobile phone to pull a fast one on the policemen. But, their language was seemingly not up to the scratch.

Not only had the trio spelt Srivilliputhur wrong, it was also ignorant of the fact that Srivilliputhur did not have a ‘district collector’. The pass should have been issued by the Virudhunagar collector. Well, the men in khaki still took the trouble of scanning the QR code on the e-pass to corroborate what they already knew: The e-pass was fake. The three persons were arrested and a case under Section 270 of the Indian Penal Code was registered against them. They were later released on own bail. Being tech savvy is indeed not a crime, but shady use of technology is.