Vishal Tyagi, AAP’s candidate for Gujarat’s Jamnagar South assembly seat, was apprehended in Rajasthan by the state’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and handed over to Jamnagar police late Sunday night. This was in relation to a Rs 3.25 lakh cheating case filed against Tyagi by a businessman, while the AAP claimed he was being “framed” in a political vendetta case.
In the early hours of Sunday, a case was registered against Bhavesh alias Tinabhai Nakam, 33, under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code. After detaining Tyagi from Rajasthan, where he had gone on a pilgrimage with his family, the Gujarat ATS handed him over to Jamnagar police.
“He has been detained till now. We are getting him tested for COVID-19 before he is formally arrested in the case of criminal breach of trust and cheating of Rs 3.25 lakh registered against him at ‘A’ Division police station,” Premsukh Delu, Superintendent of Jamnagar Police, said on Monday.
Delu said the district police had sought the help of the Gujarat ATS to trace Tyagi. “After the offense was registered against him, we requested the ATS’s help in arresting him. Accordingly, the ATS took him into custody from Rajasthan and handed him over to us,” he said.
In his complaint, Nakum claimed that Tyagi had not paid him Rs 25,000 and had not returned decorative materials worth Rs 3 lakh that he had hired for mass wedding functions about a year and a half ago. He stated that he has done business with Tyagi for the past five years because he owns an event management company and uses his services to decorate venues.
“After a few days, I met Vishal and demanded the balance payment of Rs 25000 for the services rendered and also asked him to return my artificial material, but he said he would do so in a few days. Thereafter, I would often demand overdue amount and artificial flower material, but he would say he would do so within a few days,” Nakum said in the FIR.
He also said that he had also visited the election office opened by Tyagi at Digvijay Plot-58. “However, on seeing me, Vishal Tyagi went inside the office. When I dialed him, one of his men answered. When the man was told that I had to take back the money and my artificial flower material, he asked me to meet Tyagi after the elections were over.”