Four visits, 6 months, many meetings: How wheels moved in J&K to help a conman

From rolling out the official red carpet to upgrading his security, in the form of a bullet-proof vehicle, two escort vehicles, and a dozen gunmen from Sashastra Seema Bal, The Indian Express found, behind moving the wheels were two individuals: Rajasthan-based RSS functionary Trilok Singh Chauhan and Baseer ul Haq Chaudhary, IAS officer of 2015 batch, who is Deputy Commissioner of Pulwama.

Chaudhary, when contacted, declined to comment. Chauhan is being questioned by the police. When contacted, a senior RSS functionary said Chauhan had served as a “vistarak” in J&K.

Purported videos of Patel surveying the snow slopes of Gulmarg with a posse of armed security personnel around him and of a convoy of vehicles accompanying him weaving through a Valley town have been circulated widely across social media platforms. (Video screengrab/ @bansijpatel/ Twitter)

The sequence of events around Patel’s visits, reconstructed after interviews with officials and sources, tells a story of how politics and officialdom lowered their guard:

October 25-27, 2022

* Patel lands in Srinagar with wife and daughter. Pulwama DC Chaudhary, sources said, calls up J&K Police SSP (Security) of Kashmir Sheikh Zulfikar to provide him security. Gets a bullet-proof vehicle, two escort vehicles, a dozen SSB gunmen. Zulfikar declined to comment.

* Patel meets local BJP leaders including media-in-charge Manzoor Bhat; local journalists and then Nishat Police station SHO Gauhar Hussain. Makes some of them wear ‘I am Modified’ jackets. Hussain declined to comment. Bhat confirmed that he met

February 6-8, 2023

* On his second trip, Patel gets the same security on Pulwama DC’s request. This time, he is accompanied by a Gujarat businessman identified as Amit Pandya (son of Hitesh Pandya, Additional PRO in the Gujarat CMO, who was asked to quit).

* Arranges a meeting between Pandya and Pulwama DC; Pandya, sources said, gives him a presentation on smart towers for a “business opportunity.” When contacted, Hitesh Pandya had told The Indian Express that Amit had, indeed, gone to J&K with Patel in February “for business purpose” with his consent.

* Makes trips to Gulmarg and Aherbal waterfalls in Kulgam. Enjoys hospitality of the state Tourism department. Visits Uri, gets his pictures clicked near Aman Setu on the LoC and posts on social media.

February 24-28, 2023

* Patel makes a flurry of visits to Pulwama, Doodhpathri in Budgam, gets in touch with IAS officers such as Ming Sherpa, MD, JKTDC. Discusses redevelopment of Centaur Hotel. Sherpa declined to comment.

* Accompanied by Pandya and one Dr Hardik Chandana from Gujarat who was keen to hold a doctors’ conference in Pulwama. Meeting with DC Pulwama was arranged.

* Meets Jay Sitapara, a Gujarati steel trader; promises help for setting up cold storage facilities for apples, takes him to Ahmedabad. Pandya, Chandana, Sitapara, are being questioned by police. Patel made them pay for his hotel stays and flight tickets, police said.

March 2, 2023

* Patel lands in Srinagar from Ahmedabad, not knowing his cover has been blown, sources said. Police wait until Patel reaches Lalit Grand Hotel in Dal Lake. When accosted, he tries to flush down his fake PMO visiting cards.

Patel, arrested on March 2, is in judicial custody.

Politics behind the red carpet

Behind the string-pulling is Chauhan, active in Jammu and Kashmir between 2006 and 2008, Srinagar police sources said. In July 2022, Chauhan had come to J&K for the Amarnath Yatra and was stuck due to landslides. A local photographer introduced him to Pulwama DC, Chaudhary, police sources said.

Described by colleagues as “competent and ambitious”, Chaudhary, sources said, “engaged” with Chauhan and “facilitated” his travel to the shrine. He also asked Chauhan to introduce him to “people in Delhi”, sources said.

In October that year, Patel, who had known Chauhan since 2016, asked the latter to put him in touch with some officials in J&K. Chauhan, sources said, introduced the two.

Police sources said that the day after SSP (Security) Zulfikar provided security to Patel on October 25 last year, Chaudhary went to meet him at Lalit Grand Hotel. Patel flashed his forged visiting card that mentioned him as Additional Director (Planning and Strategy) in the Prime Minister’s Office. Chaudhary, sources said, asked Zulfikar to provide one more escort (in addition to a bullet proof car and one escort vehicle), which was done.

According to established procedure, any VIP or key functionary of the government can be provided security only after approval from the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) in the UT administration.

For this, a request must come from the department concerned to which the VIP belongs, following which the quantum of security is decided according to the threat assessment done by state CID and the Intelligence Bureau (IB).

However, in Patel’s case, investigators said, none of this was followed.

ACS (Home) did not respond to messages from The Indian Express.

Significantly, before 2019, there was a more elaborate procedure for providing security to individuals visiting the state. Officials from state CID, Security Department and the Intelligence Bureau would vet requests for security, assess threat inputs, analyse intelligence, decide quantum of security and then grant, remove, increase or decrease security of individuals.

Post-2019, this job was handed over to ACS (Home). “The earlier system was not free of biases, but there was at least an institutional system with better checks and balances… such an episode would have been flagged immediately,” a security establishment officer said.

Blowing his cover

Later that month, Patel’s cover was blown at two levels. Budgam DC Fakhruddin Hamid had started his own probe on February 24 and found from the PMO website that there was no officer by this name in the PMO.

To be sure, he asked all concerned in the administration and sounded out various Deputy Commissioners and bureaucrats.

On March 1, he alerted the CEO of Doodhpathri Development Authority – who had received a call from Patel that he was coming to the tourist destination again – and told him not to entertain Patel anymore. Hamid, who sent a report to his superiors on March 2, declined to comment.

In the last week of February, the CID got active after it was alerted by some Lalit Grand staff that a guest claiming to be a PMO official had “demeanours rather unbecoming of one.” Sources said by the end of February, CID had established that Patel was a fraud.

By this time, however, Patel had left Srinagar and reached Ahmedabad.

According to Srinagar police, on March 2, CID formally informed it that the man was a fraud and that he was coming back to the Valley.

On the same day, when Patel took a flight from Ahmedabad to Srinagar, orders had been given to Budgam SSP to arrest him at the airport. However, when he arrived, his security detail was waiting for him and the Budgam police did not see it fit to engage. Once he reached the hotel, SP (East) Shree Ram and his subordinate confronted him.

Sources said he excused himself to visit the washroom. SP Shree Ram followed him suspecting foul play and found him flushing his fake PMO visiting cards down the toilet, sources said. The cards were fished out and more cards were also found on his person. He was subsequently arrested.

Incidentally, Pulwama DC, received an award from PM Narendra Modi on March 24 in Varanasi for his work on eradication of TB. Nishat Police station SHO Gauhar Hussain, under whose jurisdiction the Lalit Grand Hotel falls, was the only official to be transferred. Hussain refused to comment.

On March 29, the J&K home Department asked Vijay Kumar Bidhuri, Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, to inquire into various aspects of Patel’s visits to Kashmir and submit a report within a week.