A senior officer in the Gujarat Chief Minister’s Office resigned from his post on Friday due to links between his son and alleged conman Kiran Patel, The Times of India reported.

Additional Public Relations Officer Hitesh Pandya handed over his resignation to Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel on Friday. This was after the official’s son Amit Pandya was summoned for questioning by the Jammu and Kashmir Police.

Hitesh Pandya said that he resigned of his own accord and no one had asked him to do so, The Indian Express reported. “I will wind up my pending work by March 31 and be relieved from the office,” he said.

The police have alleged that Patel had been impersonating an additional director for strategy and campaigns in the prime minister’s office. The authorities said that Patel got facilities normally given to officials from the prime minister’s office, including a bulletproof car, security personnel and official accommodation at a five-star hotel in Jammu and Kashmir.

Patel was booked on charges of cheating and forgery on March 2 and was arrested from a five-star hotel in Srinagar on March 3.

Amit Pandya and another man named Jay Sitapara were reportedly with the alleged conman when he was first questioned by the police on March 2.

Hitesh Pandya on Friday acknowledged that his son had visited Jammu and Kashmir earlier this month with Patel “for business purpose”. He added that he had consented to the visit.

The official, however, said that Amit Pandya is innocent and is a witness in the case against Patel.

Hitesh Pandya said that he had no knowledge about the alleged conman having any links with the Gujarat Chief Minister’s Office, according to The Indian Express. However, he said that in 2011, Patel had been associated with a private organisation that he had launched, called the Nation First Foundation.

The official said that he had started the foundation in 2011 to propagate the ideas of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then the chief minister of Gujarat.

Hitesh Pandya said that he knew Patel as his son’s friend. “But in 2011 itself, I realised that he [Kiran] was not a person to be kept with us,” he claimed. “So, I relieved him and all the people with him [from the Nation First Foundation]...I did not find his dealings and billing proper…Then, he started his own organisation.”

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