When NK Amin offered ₹10 crore

While Gujarat police officer NK Amin, an accused in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case who had been given re-appointment by Gujarat Government after his retirement, resigned on Thursday following strictures by the Supreme Court, action remains to be taken on the complaint filed by Congress MLA Punabhai Gamit against him.

Amin, believed to be close to BJP national president Amit Shah when the latter was the home minister of the state, had been arrested in the fake encounter case and had spent time in prison.

In his complaint to the Election Commission filed on July 28 this year, Gamit described how Amin, then the SP of Mahisagar, had tried to bribe and force him to switch over to the BJP. Amin had then denied the allegation but Gamit on Thursday stood by his allegation to the Election Commission.

One of his associates forwarded a copy of his complaint written in Gujarati and told NH that in Gujarat it was difficult to fight a legal battle against the BJP. In this case particularly, since Amit Shah is named, he did not expect any action on the complaint by either the state police or the Election Commission.

The complaint by Gamit reads as follows:

“I was returning from the meeting with the District authorities. I stopped at Hansmukhbhai’s shop to buy provisions. But he was not there in the shop. I therefore proceeded to a fuel outlet to get diesel for the car. Soon thereafter the SP’s car arrived there and the SP, NK Amin, said there was something urgent that he wanted to discuss with me and suggested I get into his car.”

“ He drove me to his house and there he told me that I should seriously think of joining the BJP since Congress would not be giving me the ticket to contest the next election.”

“ He also told me that I would be paid ₹10 crore or an even higher amount besides the entire cost of contesting the next election. When I mildly said I was a small-time politician, he offered to set up a meeting with BJP president Amit Shah.”

“ He insisted that I should immediately leave with him to meet Shah. When I pleaded my inability and pointed out that I did not even have a change of clothes, he assured me that all the arrangements could be made on the way.”

Gamit claimed to have escaped under some pretext and reached his daughter’s house in Surat. His daughter thereafter drove him to Ahmedabad from where the group of Congress legislators were flown to Bengaluru before the Rajya Sabha election in the state.