3 min readAhmedabadMay 8, 2026 12:27 AM IST
A police inspector accused of threatening to turn a case of domestic spat into one of “love jihad” to coerce a man and his live-in partner into paying him a bribe of Rs 2 lakh, continued to remain absconding even three weeks after the state Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) booked him for graft.
VA Charan, who was last posted as the station house officer (SHO) of Padra police station in Rural Vadodara, went missing after the ACB caught his alleged accomplice while accepting the bribe amount from the complainant, said Narmada ACB’s DD Vasava, the investigation officer (IO) of the case, adding Charan was yet to be arrested.
When asked if there has been any departmental action taken against Charan, Vadodara rural superintendent of police (SP) Sushil Agrawal said, “We have filed a report on this matter and submitted it to the DGP. Further action will happen from his office.”
Notably, in such cases, if an officer is arrested and in custody for 48 hours, they can be directly suspended, but when the officer is absconding, a report is submitted to the office of the DGP, and usually leads to the transfer and subsequent suspension of the officer.
The Gujarat ACB had, on April 16, booked Charan and arrested middleman Sajid Ali Gulamrasul Syed, for demanding and accepting a sum of Rs2 lakh from an individual, who works as a cook’s help, after allegedly threatening to book him in a false case of “love jihad” under the provisions of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act.
On April 9, a domestic spat reportedly broke out between the complainant and his live-in partner at their residence in Padra. The woman called the ‘112’ helpline, and the couple, both in their 30s and belonging to different faiths, were taken to Padra police station. On the basis of a complaint by the woman, the police placed the man in preventive detention for 24 hours.
ACB inspector Ankur Prajapati, who had executed the corruption trap, had earlier told the Indian Express that after he had been placed in lockup for 24 hours, the woman told the police that they had reached a compromise and that she wanted to take the man back home, ending the matter.
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“It was then that the accused PI, VA Charan, asked the man to pay him Rs 6 lakh or he would be booked for “love jihad”. The man pleaded with the inspector that he didn’t have the amount to pay him. But the accused inspector called in the middleman Sajid Ali Syed and asked him to speak to the man (ACB complainant),” ACB Inspector Prajapati had said.
The accused Syed then allegedly pretended to plead with the accused inspector on behalf of the man and told him that he had managed to bring the bribe amount down to Rs 2 lakh. Over the next three days, between April 12 and 15, the accused persons allegedly kept calling the man, asking him to pay the money or a false case would be filed against him.
The man then approached the ACB, leading to the middleman being arrested and the inspector being booked for corruption.
According to ACB inspector Vasava, Syed was in judicial custody but had filed a bail petition, which was yet to be heard by the local court.
