Former Uttar Pradesh minister claims receiving death threats

Lucknow: Former Uttar Pradesh minister and senior Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Naseemuddin Siddiqui has received death threats on phone, police said on Tuesday.

A complaint has been lodged with police by the personal staff of Mr Siddiqui, one of the closest aides of former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati.

In the complaint, the minister's personal secretary Shyam Bihari Dixit has said that someone called up on Naseemuddin Siddiqui's cell phone number five-six times but as he was busy with work, he did not take the call.

When the phone rang again, another staff member took the call and the caller identified himself as personal secretary of some Manoj Tiwari.

The caller told the staff that he only wanted to talk to Mr Siddiqui. When the former minister took the call, he was abused by the caller and told that he would be killed if he did not pay heed to what they were saying.

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The former Public Works Department (PWD) minister hung up and asked his staff to lodge a police complaint.

Police said they were working on the case and trying to locate the mobile phone number from which the call had come.

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"We have the complaint and we are now trying to trace the number and verify the identity of the person who holds the number from which the threat call came," a police official said.