Ahmedabad: Everyone who was anyone in Gujarat knew Aam Aadmi Party leader Yuvrajsinh Jadeja. He had access to top government officials, the ear of high-ranking police officers, and a shining reputation as a whistleblower. That’s until he was accused of extorting money from some of the very people he had vowed to expose.
Jadeja, now behind bars, has maintained his innocence and AAP leaders have alleged a political conspiracy. But the police claim that they possess compelling evidence that tells a different tale.
In the weeks leading up to his arrest, 34-year-old Jadeja had been on a roll. On 5 April, he held a press conference and made explosive allegations about a dummy candidate racket in government recruitment exams. He named names, showed documents, and hinted at the complicity of officials.
The police quickly launched an investigation, taking inputs from Jadeja, ThePrint has learnt. However, the needle of suspicion soon turned to Jadeja.
On 21 April, the Bhavnagar police questioned and then arrested Jadeja.
The charge: he had allegedly extracted Rs 1 crore from two scam suspects in exchange for withholding their names from his accusations. The FIR, seen by ThePrint, accuses Jadeja and five others of criminal conspiracy and extortion, among other offences
Evidence against him, according to top sources in the Gujarat Police, includes WhatsApp chats, CCTV footage, call detail records, a land purchase document, a money trail, cash recoveries, and statements from 17 witnesses.
While Jadeja’s lawyer Salim Hanif Radhanpuri told ThePrint that the evidence against his client was thin, the allegations have been quite the fall from grace. Even before he joined AAP in 2021, Jadeja was well known as a student activist and campaigner against paper leaks and other malpractices in Gujarat’s government recruitment exams.
Also Read: In Gujarat, paper leaks an organised crime. New law has to crack inter-state criminal nexus
‘Misleading the police’
Days before his arrest, Yuvrajsinh Jadeja purportedly walked into the room of a top Gujarat police officer to give him some names of dummy candidates and sutradhars (middle men) who had allegedly been involved in the state’s dummy candidate scams.
This police officer told ThePrint that Jadeja asked him to write down a list of 11 names, but claimed that not all were currently active. Promising to give him the list of “active suspects”, Jadeja left the office only to disappear for the next couple of hours. Later in the day, Jadeja contacted the officer again and sent him a revised list with six names via WhatsApp.
“His demeanour was very calm and poised and it looked like he knew what he was doing. We also needed the phone numbers of those names to keep them on surveillance,” the officer said.
At this point in time, there was no suspicion on Jadeja. Instead, the AAP leader— who once ran a coaching institute for government exams himself— was seen as a responsible citizen trying to clean up the recruitment ecosystem.
But this perception started shifting when the police realised whose name was not on Jadeja’s list of six names — but had been present in the original list of 11 suspects. “He had removed the name and forgotten about it,” the officer said.
The missing name was that of Prakash ‘PK’ Dave. The Bhavnagar police had arrested him, along with three others, on 14 April in the course of their investigations into the dummy candidate scam exposed by Jadeja.
According to an FIR filed in Bhavnagar’s Bharatnagar police station, Dave and his alleged accomplices— Sharad Kumar Panot, Baldev Rathod, and Pradeep Baraiya—had been accused of forging exam passes and sending fake candidates to give government recruitment and school board exams.
The police officer told ThePrint that suspicions were only aroused on Jadeja’s deliberate removal of Dave’s name after the latter’s arrest. As a result, the police turned their attention to Jadeja too.
“Investigation soon revealed that Jadeja was extorting money by not disclosing some names and filtering out information. He was misleading the police,” the officer added.
Summons, new ‘revelations’, arrest
On 19 April, the special operations group (SOG) of the Bhavnagar police summoned Jadeja for questioning, but he deferred the meeting for two days, citing medical reasons.
However, a day after the summons, Jadeja called a press conference and said he had been accused of “hiding” names. He then went on to publicly declare that PK Dave had indeed sent two dummy candidates for the Class 12 exam. Jadeja claimed he had withheld the details of this instance out of consideration for the mother of one of the alleged dummy candidates.
In this press meet that Jadeja also announced that he would soon be revealing the names of ministers and “big leaders” who were purportedly involved in the state’s recruitment rackets.
But on 21 April, the Bhavnagar police questioned Jadeja for several hours and then arrested him.
The FIR, lodged on the basis of a complaint by SB Bharwad, a Bhavnagar SOG police inspector, indicates that Jadeja and five alleged accomplices— including two of his brothers-in-law— sought to profit from the exam scam suspects that he had identified.
Jadeja is a resident of Gondal city in Rajkot, but had been travelling to Bhavnagar to ‘investigate’ the dummy candidate scam, police sources said.
Money for silence— what the FIR says
Jadeja extorted a total of Rs 1 crore from PK Dave and Pradeep Baraiya, two of the accused in the dummy candidate racket, according to the FIR, seen by ThePrint.
While Dave is a block resource coordinator (BRC) for a cluster of schools, Baraiya is a court clerk.
It is alleged that Jadeja instructed his associates to hold meetings with Dave and Baraiya ahead of the famous 5 April press conference.
The two men were allegedly asked to cough up money if they did not want to feature in Jadeja’s upcoming expose. Subsequently, Dave and Baraiya purportedly paid up Rs 45 lakh and Rs 55 lakh respectively.
The FIR also outlines how these alleged interactions and transactions took place.
On 25 March, says the FIR, PK Dave found out from his wife Ila Behen that a friend called Ghanshyam Ladhwa (one of the named accused in the extortion case) had seen an incriminating video shown by Jadeja. Ila had also heard that Jadeja was threatening to expose Dave.
Ila Behen then informed Dave that she had spoken to Ladhwa, who was seeking a solution to prevent Jadeja from exposing Dave, the FIR says.
Allegedly, a deal was initiated, starting at Rs 70 lakh but later settled at Rs 45 lakh after multiple discussions in person and over WhatsApp calls involving Jadeja, his associates, and Dave’s relatives.
Finally, on 29 March, PK Dave allegedly handed over the money to Ladhwa at his residence. Notably, Jadeja refrained from revealing Dave’s name during the press conference held on 5 April.
During the same time period, a deal was also allegedly arranged between Pradeep Baraiya and Jadeja after the former expressed concerns about being named in the press conference.
The FIR says Baraiya approached Ladhwa and requested his assistance in contacting Jadeja. A meeting then purportedly took place between Jadeja, his aides, and Baraiya. In the course of this, Jadeja allegedly threatened to publicly expose Baraiya.
In this case, too, a price of Rs 55 lakh was allegedly settled to keep Baraiya’s name out of the press conference. He was not mentioned during Jadeja’s 5 April reveal.
The FIR also states that Jadeja attended meetings with both Dave and Baraiya at his brother-in-law Shivubha’s office.
Out of the accused, Ghanshyam Ladhwa, Raju Bhai alias Altaf Pathan, Bipin Trivedi, and Jadeja’s brother-in-law Kanbha have been granted bail. However, Jadeja and his other brother-in-law, Shivubha, are still lodged in Bhavnagar Central Jail.
Evidence trail
There is a solid repository of evidence against Jadeja and his alleged accomplices, according to police sources, ranging from cash to land records.
Police sources claim to have recovered Rs 84 lakh from the accused in the extortion case so far.
While Jadeja’s lawyer Salim Mohammed Hanif Radhanpuri told ThePrint that none of this money was recovered from his client and that the family felt “harassed”, the police claim that they have evidence that a chunk of the “extortion money” was used by Jadeja to buy land in Gandhinagar’s Dehgam.
“We have verified documents that the land was purchased after the (extortion) deal. The money — almost Rs 6 lakh— was channelled through Angadia services (a traditional courier system),” said another police officer. He added that Jadeja’s father-in-law had given the money to one of the former’s friends after which the land deal was sealed.
“The father-in-law didn’t know that the money was from extortion. Shivubha had given him the money and Jadeja asked his father-in-law to give it to his friend Sukhdev Parmar. Parmar then paid the money in cash to the owner of the land. We have recorded his statement,” the officer said.
“Some of the money was also given to his informers,” he added.
Parmar is now a police witness in the case, alongside 16 other witnesses whose statements have been recorded.
“They have recovered nothing from Jadeja. Whatever else they have found will be clear after the chargesheet is filed,” lawyer Radhanpuri said.
Speaking to ThePrint, Bhavnagar superintendent of police (SP) Ravindra Patel said that the extortion case had been “planned and conspired” by Jadeja.
“He had demanded the money through his accomplices and the relatives of PK Dave and Pradeep Baraiya. We have evidence of these meetings,” SP Patel said.
When asked if Jadeja was suspected of extorting others too, the SP denied it.
“We haven’t found anything else, apart from Jadeja extorting money from these two men,” he said.
Fall from grace
Jadeja’s arrest in the extortionist case has shocked many in Gujarat. Until that point, he had been seen as a flagbearer for fairness and a voice against the paper leaks in the state.
From lauding the Gujarat Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill to demanding the formation of a special task force, CBI enquiry and speedy trials in the paper leak scams, Jadeja seemed like a force to be reckoned with in the state. Indeed, he had pursued unemployment and recruitment issues in Gujarat even before he became a member of the opposition.
Ahead of last year’s assembly election in Gujarat, Jadeja was announced as the party’s candidate from the Dehgam seat, but ultimately did not contest, reportedly preferring to campaign for the party instead.
It is this squeaky clean image that the AAP is pointing to as it cries foul over Jadeja’s arrest.
“Yuvrajsinh Jadeja has been the face of student activism and has been exposing paper leak scams since 2018. He has always provided the government with proof. He also exposed the dummy candidate scams in the state. Twice, because of him, Gujarat Public Service Commission exams were cancelled. Now, the state government has arrested him to save its own face,” alleged Isudan Gadhvi, Gujarat president of AAP.
Gadhvi told ThePrint that he believed that Jadeja had been “framed” on another occasion as well.
In April 2022, Jadeja was arrested for allegedly attacking some Gandhinagar policemen and dragging a constable on the bonnet of his car. The scuffle broke out after Jadeja had come to the Gandhinagar police station to support a group of teaching job aspirants who had been detained for protesting without permission. He was booked under section 307 of the IPC (attempt to murder).
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
Also Read: How Kiran Patel used ‘RSS link’ to start J&K con game. ‘Overacting’ & IAS-IPS confusion blew cover