Shailendra Kumar, who once worked with DD, will next be busy with Ramleela. (Express photo: Amitava Chakraborty)“You worked on his face, added a white beard to make him look old. But what about his hands?” asks Shailendra Kumar, 49, sitting in his apartment in G D Colony in East Delhi's Mayur Vihar Phase III.
Kumar, a freelance makeup artist, was referring to the incident of September 8, when Jayesh Patel, a 32-year-old from Gujarat, was arrested from New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport for impersonating an octogenarian while boarding a New York-bound plane with a fake passport. The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which guards most of the country's airports, stated in a press release, “The appearance and skin texture of the passenger seemed to be much younger than mentioned in the passport.”
During the investigation, Patel reportedly confessed that a makeup artist had visited him in his hotel in Paharganj for the makeover. Following an intense search operation, police arrested Shamsher Singh, 42, a makeup artist who goes by the moniker “Billu Barber” and runs a parlour in Patel Nagar.
Police have accused Singh of working with a gang that has been helping people to illegally emigrate to other countries. According to DCP (Airport) Sanjay Bhatia, “Singh has helped at least 10 other people, including two women, change their appearance and conceal their age or gender… The officer (who arrested Patel) also realised…
