Vadodara: Hours before Viraj Ashwin Patel was brought to Vadodara’s Gotri police station on 27 April for alleged involvement in a late-night brawl at a movie theatre, he had visited the same station with a “woman friend”, to register a harassment complaint against an unknown woman.
At that time, Patel had allegedly introduced himself as Viraj Shah, president of the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), a business centre in Gandhinagar, and even claimed to be working in the Gujarat chief minister’s office (CMO). He had also enquired about who was the officer-in-charge at the station, a source in Vadodara police told ThePrint.
According to sources in Vadodara police, they had, at that time, found no reason to suspect the 30-year-old — currently lodged at the Vadodara Central Jail in judicial custody. It was only when he was brought in later at night that chinks started appearing in his story.
“His identification cards, including PAN and Aadhaar, were fake. While his PAN card mentioned his name as Viraj Shah, his Aadhaar card identified him as [just] Viraj,” a police source privy to the investigation told ThePrint.
However, this was just the beginning of the revelations.
The following day, the woman who had earlier accompanied him to the police station and was also allegedly with him at the time of the movie theatre brawl, filed a complaint accusing Patel of raping her several times — beginning 8 April — on the “pretext of marriage”, and making her the “brand ambassador” of GIFT City.
Investigation by police not only helped reveal his real identity, but also brought to light previous cases against him, sources said.
He had been arrested in different states over the years for “conning” people, and would allegedly repeat the offence after being released on bail. The fake identities of GIFT City president and Gujarat CMO official were allegedly not the only outrageous ones used by him — he had earlier even claimed to be Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s nephew to trick some people, according to police sources.
Following the woman’s complaint last month, an FIR was registered against him under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating & inducing delivery of property), and 376(2)n (rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), police sources said.
Both Patel and the complainant have undergone medical tests, the sources added.
Police have also booked Patel under sections 170 (impersonating a public servant), 417 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forging documents for cheating), and 471 (using forged documents) of the IPC. ThePrint has a copy of this FIR.
Patel is now awaiting an investigation by the crime branch of Vadodara police into both the FIRs. ThePrint reached an officer of the crime branch over phone for comment on the case, but received no response till the time of publication.
ThePrint also reached the 39-year-old complainant, a Mumbai resident, over phone for comment, but the call went unanswered. ThePrint further reached Patel’s lawyer, Bhavin Kumar N. Patel, over phone for comment, but received no response till the time of publication. The copy will be updated once a response is received.
Meanwhile, a UP police officer told ThePrint about one of Patel’s earlier alleged con acts. “The man arrested by the Vadodara police for impersonating a CMO official is the same person we arrested in Agra in 2020 (in a similar case),” Rohan Pramod Botre, superintendent of police (SP) of UP’s Anti Human Trafficking Unit, said over phone.
Botre was serving as Agra SP at the time.
Goa-Mumbai-Vadodara
Patel, who hails from Gandhinagar’s Sargasan village, is estranged from his family, according to police sources. With the family living abroad, Patel’s access to his ancestral wealth allegedly came in handy as he lured models by promising to make them GIFT City ambassadors.
Police sources further told ThePrint that according to the FIR registered by the 39-year-old Mumbai-based model, she received a call from a modelling agency in the first week of April, informing her about her selection as brand ambassador of GIFT City. She was also told that the shoot would be held soon, in Gujarat and Dubai, the FIR added.
The agency then allegedly connected her to Patel on the phone, who allegedly introduced himself as Viraj Shah.
Within days, Patel allegedly invited the complainant on a trip to Goa, on 9 April. According to the woman’s FIR, he had also offered her a flat in Mumbai’s Oshiwara, besides the job opportunity and promised a sum of Rs 50,000 as salary.
The woman’s FIR, contents of which police sources shared with ThePrint, mentions that in Goa, the two stayed at Le Seasons Resort in Candolim and that it was on this trip that he allegedly proposed marriage to her, promising to take care of her son.
The woman has alleged that while in Goa, Patel withdrew Rs 35 lakh from her bank account, but she didn’t make much of it at the time because she thought they were going to be married soon.
He also allegedly told her that his parents would be visiting soon from the US.
“He showed her a picture of some jewellery and described it as ‘shagun’ [a symbol of good luck] prepared for her by his family. A few days later, he said his family was opposed to the relationship and hence, would not be able to make it,” said the police source quoted earlier.
Patel and the woman returned to Mumbai after a few days, where he allegedly stayed with her family and insisted that he would marry her despite his family’s opposition.
Police sources told ThePrint that according to the FIR, on 24 April, Patel travelled to Vadodara with her, ostensibly because the paperwork for her employment with the GIFT City was complete and the shoot was to begin soon.
It was during this trip, while they stayed at the Vivanta Hotel, Vadodara, that the woman allegedly started receiving threatening calls from a woman who identified herself as Urvashi Solanki, and claimed she was to be the GIFT City ambassador, not the complainant.
The complainant added Patel took her sightseeing the next day and they got each other’s names tattooed on their wrists.
On 27 April, when the “threatening call” came again, the two went to Gotri police station to file a complaint and seek protection. While the police denied protection, they assured help as and when required, police sources told ThePrint.
The two later went to watch a movie at the Triumph Mall, Nilamber Circle, where Patel got into an argument with some people sitting in front of him, claimed the woman’s FIR.
During the argument, he allegedly repeated that he was a CMO official and claimed to know senior police officers. He even reportedly rang up the Gotri police station from the theatre, demanding action, sources told ThePrint.
It was during his questioning at the station that the police got suspicious. While verification of his documents revealed the identity assumed by him to be fake, the senior officers he had mentioned earlier also confirmed they didn’t know him, sources added.
“When asked about his motive in being with the woman [during interrogation], Viraj said he set out to con her but fell in love with her and that’s why he got her name tattooed on his wrist,” said the source quoted earlier.
4 FIRs in 3 days
Meanwhile, a preliminary investigation into the case by Vadodara police allegedly revealed that this was not the first time Patel has been arrested for cheating and impersonation. From Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat to Uttar Pradesh, Patel had allegedly pulled off similar cons earlier too in the past seven years, police sources told ThePrint.
In July last year, four FIRs were registered against him, all at different police stations in Ahmedabad, within a span of three days, said the police sources.
According to the FIRs, copies of which have been accessed by ThePrint, the first one was registered by Yashpal Harishchandra Singh, an Ahmedabad resident, on 9 July.
Singh alleged that Patel duped his daughter of Rs 50,000, after promising her an opportunity to become brand ambassador of GIFT City. Patel had been booked under IPC sections 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating, inducing delivery of property).
The next FIR, under sections 379 (theft) of IPC, was registered against him on 10 July, accusing Patel of stealing Rs 1 lakh from another complainant. It does not mention the complainant’s name, but alleges that Patel used the same GIFT City ambassador ploy to con her.
Another FIR was lodged against him on 11 July by a cab driver, identified in the FIR as Jignesh Kanji Bhai Desai, who claimed Patel had duped him of Rs 80,000, while the fourth, registered on the same day, accused him of cheating the complainant, identified as Manmit Kaur, of Rs 70,000. Both these FIRs were also registered under sections 406 and 420 of the IPC.
ThePrint reached both Desai and Kaur over phone. While Desai refused to comment, call to Kaur’s phone went unanswered.
Talking to ThePrint over the phone, Singh, the first complainant, claimed, “It was when I looked him up [Viraj Patel] on Google that I came to know that he had done this before.” He alleged that besides the false promises, Patel also gave fake cheques to his daughter.
After these FIRs, Patel was in jail for 20 days but later released on bail, said police.
Police sources in Vadodara were unable to comment on the current status of these cases. ThePrint reached Ahmedabad police over phone for comment on the cases, but received no response till the time of publication of this report. The copy will be updated once Patel’s lawyers or the police respond to ThePrint’s calls.
‘Amit Shah’s nephew’
Between 2016 and 2020, Patel, going by the name of Viraj Shah, allegedly duped, or attempted to dupe, at least two people by claiming to be Amit Shah’s nephew.
Police sources in Vadodara said he was arrested by Ujjain police on 6 August 2016 for allegedly duping Naresh Sharma, “an associate” of then Ujjain South BJP MLA Dr Mohan Yadav, by claiming to be the nephew of Amit Shah, who was then the BJP president.
Posing as ‘Viraj Shah’, Patel allegedly contacted Sharma for help. He claimed that his luggage, comprising items worth Rs 3 lakh, was stolen on a train journey from Shyamgarh to Nagda in Madhya Pradesh, sources said.
Sharma allegedly lent him Rs 65,000 and a new smartphone before ‘Viraj Shah’ absconded the city. On Sharma’s complaint, the police traced the accused and caught him near Petlawad. Patel was briefly in jail before being released on bail, according to sources in Vadodara police.
Further investigation by the Ujjain police at the time had allegedly revealed that ‘Viraj Shah’ had prior cases against him in other states too, said sources in Gujarat police.
In 2020, ‘Viraj Shah’ allegedly tried the same act with another BJP MLA, but in Uttar Pradesh. He allegedly reached then BJP MLA Yogendra Upadhyaya on the phone, claiming he was Amit Shah’s nephew and saying wanted to buy a hotel in Agra, according to police sources privy to the investigation.
He then allegedly bought clothes worth Rs 40,000 and asked Upadhyaya’s son to pay for them. However, the legislator got suspicious and tried looking him up on the internet. His suspicions were confirmed when he found nothing to link him to the senior politician. An FIR was lodged on 30 November, 2020, again under IPCsections 406 and 420. Again, Patel was in jail for a few days but got out on bail.
Sources in Vadodara police told ThePrint that the status of these cases is also not known. ThePrint also reached Ujjain and Agra police for more information. The copy will be updated once Patel’s lawyers or the police respond to ThePrint’s calls.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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