Former BSP MLA Amarpal Sharma who is currently jailed for his alleged involvement in a BJP worker’s murder has been booked for making extortion calls. As per reports, the former MLA from Sahibabad was booked on Wednesday for extorting Rs 10 lakh from a Sahibabad builder.
The Ghaziabad police have lodged a case of extortion and criminal intimidation against Sharma and two others. As per a complaint by 59 year old Veerpal Chowdhary, Sharma while at a civil court on Tuesday, called him up at about 12:40 PM and demanded the money, failing which he claimed he was warned of dire consequences.
As per reports, Sharma was heard saying that if you (Chowdhary) think that me being jailed means you can’t be harmed, then you are wrong. He also allegedly said that he could do anything he wanted from inside the jail. Reports also claimed that Chowdhary was abused by Sharma. The complaint supposedly claims that Baba and Afzal two employees of Sharma had provided him with Chowdhary’s number.
An aide of Sharma named Rahul though has denied the extortion allegations by claiming that it was impossible for Sharma to make a phone call while being in police custody. Ghaziabad police SSP Vaibhav Krishna has been quoted as saying that, prima facie the case seems to be of a property dispute and not extortion. He claimed that Sharma and Chowdhary used to be business partners. The police though is investigating the angle of Sharma making a phone call while being in police custody.
On 2 September 2017 BJP worker Gajendra Bhati was gunned down by two bike-borne assailants in Ghaziabad, allegedly at the behest of Sharma. On 20 September the Allahabad High Court gave Sharma three week’s time to surrender to the authorities but he continued to be on the run. Later the police put a Rs 25,000 reward for anyone aiding his arrest. He finally decided to surrender before the court in mid-October.
The police meanwhile had arrested the two “hitmen” Narender Fauji and Raju Pehelwan who claimed that they killed the BJP worker at the behest of Sharma after being paid Rs 10 lakh. As per the assailant Fauji, Sharma wanted to get rid of Bhati to avoid problems in future elections.
Politically, Sharma was expelled by the BSP in January 2017 for anti-party activities, following which he joined the Congress party and unsuccessfully contested the UP Assembly polls from Sahibaba. During the polls he had courted controversy after liquor in large quantities was seized from his office during a Ghaziabad police raid.
