Image showing Bengaluru police personnel. For representational purposes.
Credit: DH File Photo
Bengaluru: Bengaluru police on Saturday detained Union Minister Pralhad Joshi’s brother Gopal Joshi and nephew Ajay Joshi from Maharashtra for allegedly cheating a former Karnataka MLA by offering a ticket in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Senior police officers in Bengaluru confirmed to DH that Gopal and his son Ajay were detained in Kohlapur and Pune, respectively.
“The formal arrest procedures would be completed once the suspects were brought to Bengaluru, which is expected by late Saturday night,” a senior officer overseeing the investigation said. “They will be produced before the court on Sunday where the police will seek their custody.”
From Kohlapur, Gopal was taken to Hubballi where the team from Basaveshwara Nagar police station in Bengaluru searched his house. He was then taken to Keshwapur police station before the team of investigators left for Bengaluru.
Police had previously arrested Somashekar Nayak, believed to have conspired with the rest, and Vijaya Kumari, who posed as Pralhad’s sister using the name Vijayalakshmi Joshi.
The suspects were named in the FIR registered on October 17 based on a complaint by Sunitha Chavan, the wife of former Nagthan JD(S) MLA Devanand Fulasing Chavan.
The case was registered under BNS sections, including cheating, criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy. Sections of the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act were also invoked.
Sunitha alleged that Gopal promised her and her husband a ticket in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and claimed that his brother, Pralhad, had significant influence with central leaders and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah "listened to him". As per FIR, Sunitha was cheated of Rs 2.5 crore.
Union Minister Pralhad on Friday had said that he and Gopal were separated for over three decades. He said he had filed an affidavit in the court and published a public notice in 2012 saying any financial business done by anyone claiming to be his brother, relatives or friends wouldn’t be binding on him. He also clarified that he had no sister.
Meanwhile, after a report claimed that Sunitha Chavan was withdrawing the case, she told DH that she was misquoted. “I will proceed legally,” she said.