With a new FIR lodged against him on Saturday, bluff-master Kiran Patel is now mired in six police cases. This time, he has been charged by Ahmedabad-based event management firm owner Kishor Chandrana for duping him on promises of a “big project in Jammu and Kashmir.”
The Ahmedabad crime branch registered the first information report against Patel. Patel was first arrested on March 17 by the J&K police for posing as a PMO official and brought to Gujarat on a transfer warrant by the Ahmedabad crime branch on April 8 in connection with another cheating case registered against him, said officials.
The conman also held a series of meetings with officials during his two visits to Srinagar earlier this year. His social handle also has several videos and pictures of his “official visits” in Kashmir surrounded by paramilitary guards, the last of which was on March 2.
According to the crime branch, Patel identified himself as an (FIR) “additional director” in the PMO by sending a visiting card to the complainant on WhatsApp and claimed that he had been delegated “responsibility towards development of Kashmir.”
He lured the complainant by promising a contract for an all-India level medical conference at Pulwama in J&K and made him spend ₹ 3.5 lakh, police sources briefed on the complaint.
Chandarana is reported to have detailed the spendings. “Money was spent by Patel in organising an event at a five-star hotel in Ahmedabad under the G20 Summit banner. Then, some part of the amount went into paying for Patel’s air travel from Ahmedabad to Srinagar and for his stay at a five-star hotel there,” shared the officials.
In the latest case, Patel has been booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), and 170 (pretending to hold office as a public servant).
Patel is currently in police custody in Ahmedabad in connection with a case related to usurping a bungalow belonging to Jagdish Chavda, brother of former Gujarat minister Jawahar Chavda. The complaint names Kiran and his wife Malini for defrauding Chavda of about Rs 15 crore in the name of renovating his residential property in the Shilaj vicinity of Ahmedabad.
The couple was booked under the IPC Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 170 (personating a public servant) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy).
Apart from the FIR in Srinagar of J&K, Patel has also been named in cases registered at Naroda police station in Ahmedabad, Raopura police station in Vadodara and Bayad in Aravalli district, said officials.
