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Kiran Bhai Patel was arrested on March 2. Hitesh Pandya, a senior official in the Gujarat Chief Minister's Office, has resigned following a major controversy over his son being part of a fake 'official' team at the 'Prime Minister's Office' that has misled the administration and the apparatus. security of Jammu and Kashmir. on getting a Z-plus security blanket, official accommodation in a five-star hotel and much more. Amit Hitesh Pandya, son of Mr. Pandya, was part of a fake "official team" led by con man Kiran Bhai Patel that made headlines after his arrest earlier this month.
Mr. Pandya, who has served as Public Relations Officer (PRO) to the Chief Minister of Gujarat since 2001, tendered his resignation to Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel last night.
In his resignation letter, Pandya reportedly said that he did not want the image of the Gujarat Prime Minister's Office and Prime Minister's Office to be tarnished, despite the fact that his son is "innocent".
"My son is innocent. However, I do not want the image of the CMO and PMO to be tarnished, and that is why I am resigning from this position," Pandya said in the resignation letter.
The Gujarat BJP has also reportedly suspended Amit Pandya from the senior members of the party. He was responsible for the party's social media department for the north area of Gujarat.
However, the Jammu and Kashmir police did not name Amit Pandya as a defendant in the fake PMO team case. Amit and his Gujarati accomplice, Jay Sitapara, were named witnesses in the case.
Scammer Kiran Bahi Patel was arrested earlier this month after being in official protocol for more than four months while posing as a senior official in the Prime Minister's Office. However, Amit and Jay Sitapara were released by the police.
They were called in for questioning last week. A senior police official said the duo may have "fallen into the trap" of the scammer.
The scammer had visited various locations, including outposts along the Line of Control. The team also met with officials in various districts of Kashmir before alerting the police that he was a scammer.
"I trust my son. He would never get involved in such activity," Pandya said.
Patel, posing as an additional director of strategy and campaigns in the Prime Minister's Office, was arrested on March 2.
But his arrest was kept secret by the police for two weeks. Details of the “high-profile” arrest only emerged after he was detained by a magistrate on March 15.
Sources say Amit Hitesh Pandya, Jay Sitapara from Gujarat and Trilok Singh from Rajasthan were also staying with Patel at a five-star hotel in Srinagar and posing as an official team from the Prime Minister's Office.
The "PMO team" has been visiting Kashmir since October last year. Sources say that an IAS officer who is a district magistrate in South Kashmir initially informed the security wing of the police of the visit of a "senior PMO officer".
Eventually, he was given Z security plus by the security wing, and the local police would also accompany the "VIP" wherever he and his team went on their many trips since October.
Patel is also verified on Twitter and has over a thousand followers including BJP Gujarat General Secretary Pradipsinh Vaghela.
He shared several videos and photos of his "official visits" to Kashmir surrounded by paramilitary guards, the last of which was on March 2.
