Kunwar Afzal Chaudhary, a former Uttar Pradesh Minority Commission member was arrested by Ghaziabad police on Thursday for impersonation. A local BJP leader, Chaudhary was appointed to the commission in February of this year.
As per a TOI report, Chaudhary was accused of pressurising government officials to carry out his tasks by misusing his position as the minority commission’s member. Besides this, as per Ghaziabad SSP Vaibhav Krishna, he and other senior officials used to receive calls from him, with a demand that they do tasks for him which weren’t “in accordance with the law”. Chaudhary has also been accused of enriching himself after successfully extracting the said favours.
A Business Standard report has claimed that the demands included illegal activities like getting two assault accused off the hook and asking Ghaziabad’s District Magistrate Ritu Maheswari, to rule in favour of a retired official in a land matter. In the assault case, the two individuals were accused of thrashing a UP roadways bus conductor and to get them off the hook, Chaudhary unsuccessfully called up Ghaziabad’s SSP.
One of the techniques used by him to put further pressure, besides taking in a strong manner, was impersonating powerful politicians. Some of the politicians impersonated include UP’s deputy CM Dinesh Sharma, former BJP leader Yashwant Sinha and former Gujarat CM Shankar Singh Vaghela.
The authorities soon were suspicious of his action and the police launched an investigation four days prior to his arrest. They produced a four page report on the basis of their findings, following which he was sacked from his position as minority commission member by the Yogi government.
Besides Chaudhary, the police also arrested his accomplice Krishna Kumar. During their investigation the police recovered five mobile phones, sim cards and a Mercedes. The charges framed against him include that of cheating, impersonation and forgery.
