Following forceful confinement and threats on Saturday, including from a senior HC lawyer, a Thaltej-based businessman filed an FIR with Pethapur police in Gandhinagar, Sunday. His complaint also mentions being attacked, unlawful detention and criminal intimidation.
Viral Shah, who owns a steel production firm in Kukarwada, Mehsana, claimed in his FIR that he was exposed to assault only because he refused to sign an illegal document holding him responsible for a Rs 100 crore financial crime. Shah stated that his friend Jankar Solanki and two brothers from Vadodara, Kuren Amin and Ikshit Amin, were involved in an automobile business.
“Kuren and Ikshit filed a complaint with the CID (crime) on December 9, 2021, holding me, along with Solanki and 24 others, guilty of siphoning off roughly Rs 100 crores. The money was embezzled into fictitious firms. They framed me in the lawsuit, despite the fact that I was never recruited as a director or a signatory in their Skoda dealership on SG Road,” Shah asserted.
Shah stated that he went to the Gujarat high court, and that the charge against him was dismissed on May 2.
“Even after that, the accused, including the Amin brothers, a senior high court lawyer I.H. Syed, Ravi Solanki, and Gandhinagar resident Bhaumik Thakkar, pressed me to sign an agreement holding me liable for the financial fraud and the loss incurred to the Amin brothers and Jankar,” Shah claimed.
According to the investigating officer, sub-inspector M.S. Rana at Pethapur PS, the accused reportedly called Shah at the Pethapur house and started exerting pressure on him to sign the illegal agreement.
“When he refused to sign the paperwork, the accused began assaulting him, threatening to harm his family members and implicating him in a phoney rape case,” Rana added, quoting the FIR.
According to the FIR: “As Shah attempted to flee, they all assaulted him severely. He managed to whisk away since his driver was already in the car.”
Shah was eventually admitted to a private hospital in Thaltej and a medico-legal lawsuit was filed against him. Pethapur police later charged the accused with violating IPC sections 387 (putting a person in fear of death or grievous harm in order to commit extortion), 389 (putting a person in fear of accusation of offence in order to commit extortion), 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 143 (unlawful assembly), 147 (rioting), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of the offence committed in prosecution of common object), 323 (causing hurt), 504 (wrongful confinement).
On April 29, Shah filed a complaint with the Navrangpura police station in Ahmedabad, stating that Ikshit and Solanki had intimidated him but it was not registered as an FIR.
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