Alleged conman Kiran Bhai Patel, who was arrested in Jammu and Kashmir for claiming to be a senior official from the prime minister’s office, was on Thursday handed over to the Gujarat Police.
The court of the chief judicial magistrate in Srinagar ordered that he be shifted to Gujarat after the state police had sought his custody in connection with a fresh case filed against him by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch, Greater Kashmir reported.
“He along with a team of Gujarat Police is on way to his home state,” an unidentified official told the newspaper.
The Jammu and Kashmir Police had arrested Patel on March 3 for allegedly impersonating an additional director for strategy and campaigns in the prime minister’s office. The authorities said that he got facilities normally given to officials from the prime minister’s office, including a bulletproof car, security personnel and official accommodation at a five-star hotel in Jammu and Kashmir.
He was booked on charges of cheating and forgery on March 2.
On March 23, the chief judicial magistrate, Srinagar, Raja Mohammad Tasleem denied bail to the alleged conman. The judge observed that it was “spectacularly evident” that he prima facie forged some documents to deceive not just one person but an “extremely elevated class of the society including high officials of the civil administration and police authorities”.
Four cases have also been filed against Patel in different police stations in Gujarat involving allegations of criminal breach of trust, cheating and criminal conspiracy.
On March 28, his wife Malini Patel was detained for allegedly defrauding the brother of a former Bharatiya Janata Party minister of about Rs 15 crore by promising to renovate his residential property in Ahmedabad.
On March 22, Jagdish Chavda, brother of former Gujarat minister Jawahar Chavda, had filed a first information report. According to it, Kiran Bhai Patel had claimed that he is a Class 1 officer in the prime minister’s office who was connected to a “big Adani project”. He also reportedly told Jagdish Chavda that he has “large political stature” and “experience in renovating bungalows and buildings”.
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