Ahmedabad: The Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad on Monday arrested five persons including BJP leaders and journalists for allegedly hatching a conspiracy to extort Rs 8 crore from a retired Indian Police Service officer and retired DGP by preparing and circulating a false affidavit to claim he had raped a woman, an official said on Monday. This matter came up as it went viral on social media and the ATS team started an investigation immediately.
The accused have been identified as mastermind G K Parajapati, his aides Haresh Jadav and Mahendra Parmar and Gandhinagar-based journalists Ashutosh Pandya and Kartik Jani, an official said. According to sources, local BJP leaders and journalists together had registered a case of rape with a woman and conspired a plan. The whole conspiracy was hatched by making a false affidavit regarding this.
As per the affidavit signed by the 33-year-old married woman, the former cop had raped her twice in the guise of helping her with a criminal case registered against her brother. The woman, who had signed the affidavit, filed a rape case against one Ismail Malek at Pethapur police station of Gandhinagar in January this year, the ATS official said.
Also read:Delhi Police busts honey trap racket, 4 including woman held
"Some time back, Malek allegedly took the woman to a man living in Chandkheda and told her that he is a very senior police officer and he can bring her brother out of jail. During our questioning, the woman told us the man raped her twice by promising to help her. However, as directed by Prajapati, she did not mention about this episode in her complaint against Malek, who is now behind bars," the official said.
Prajapati along with Jadav and Parmar hatched a conspiracy to extort money from the retired IPS officer and convinced the woman to sign the affidavit, in which they had written the name of the former cop without the woman's knowledge, he said. At the same time, two journalists took Rs 5 lakhs for making the affidavit viral on social media. During the investigation, it has been revealed that this entire plan was made to extort money to blackmail by releasing an affidavit.
"All the five accused were handed over to Sector-7 police in Gandhinagar for further investigation. They were booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 389 (putting a person in fear of accusation of offence in order to commit extortion) and 120B (criminal conspiracy)," police sources said. (With Agency Inputs)
