Uttarakhand: 19-year-old youth held for posing as Amit Shah's son to demand money from MLAs

A 19-year-old man, Priyanshu Pant, and two accomplices attempted to extort ₹5 lakh from BJP MLA Adesh Chauhan, posing as Union Minister Amit Shah’s son.

A 19-year-old man and his two accomplices, in pursuit of a luxurious life, decided to extort money from an MLA in Uttarakhand.

The accused was arrested in Delhi on Monday. (Representational)

To execute their plan, the main accused, Priyanshu Pant, called up BJP MLA from Haridwar's Ranipur, Adesh Chauhan, and allegedly posed as Union home minister Amit Shah’s son before putting forth a demand of ₹5 lakh, said an official, according to a PTI report.

The main accused has been arrested by Uttarakhand police. Out of the other two, one has been arrested while the police are looking for the other one.

Pant was arrested from Delhi on Monday evening by police, said Haridwar Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Pramod Singh Dobal. One of his accomplices, Uvesh Ahmed, was arrested from Rudrapur in Uttarakhand’s Udham Singh Nagar district while the police are looking for the third accused, identified as Gaurav Nath.

The incident occured late Sunday evening when the main accused called up Adesh Chauhan and introduced himself as Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah, the report said.

He further went on to demand ₹5 lakh from him as donation to party funds. As Chauhan grew suspicious of the caller and expressed his confusion, he was met with threats from the other side. The accused threatened to defame the MLA on social media if he refused to give the money.

Following this, a case was filed at Uttarakhand’s Bahadarabad police station under the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita and the police started looking for the accused.

The police tracked the phone’s locations, call detail records, and IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) numbers and pinned its location in the national capital, said SSP Dobal. Following multiple raids in Delhi and Ghaziabad, Priyanshu Pant was arrested with the phone he used to make the calls in Delhi.

Not their first time

Notably, this was not the first time the accused had tried to extort money from politicians. They had tried to extort money from two other MLAs - Nainital’s Sarita Arya and Rudrapur’s Shiv Arora - in exchange for making them ministers, said Pramod Dobal. They are facing cases in Nainital and Rudrapur as well in the matter.

Calling up MLAs and extorting money from them was a plan hatched by all three accused to fuel their desire for a luxurious life, said police.

With PTI inputs.