Qureshi said imposter Krishna Kumar spoke to him as Gavit while his accomplice Vinod Kumar posed as the minister's assistant.

"I expressed my inability to help them because the area (Noida) was not within my jurisdiction," he said. "Krishna and Vinod later called up Baljeet Singh, a former SHO of DLF Police Station, and asked him for the same favour."

Qureshi said he had forgotten about this incident as a hoax till he saw the news on a TV channel on August 13 of a purported conversation between Manikrao Gavit and gangster Surinder Bhati lodged in a Uttar Pradesh jail.

A day later, Baljeet told Qureshi that he had received the call from the same cellphone number as was allegedly used by "Gavit" to call up the gangster. The SSP then cross-checked the numb]er from his own record and found it to be the same from which he himself had received the call a few months back.

He, however, did not inform the Delhi Police or the CBI of this connection, he says.

A week after the tapes of the purported conversation were aired, the issue swiftly ballooned into a crisis for the Cental Government. But it proved short-lived as on August 24, four days after the CBI began a probe, a forensic test confirmed that the two voices in the tape didn't match with those of Gavit and his personal secretary.

The minister, who had sworn innocence and had won support across party lines in Parliament, was given a clean chit.

Krishan and Vinod -- both real estate agents from Rohini -- were arrested from Karawal Nagar in north-east Delhi and are in police custody. They have admitted to talking to Bhati, who is in a Bulandshahr jail, and using his "clout" in their real estate business.

They have been booked under various Sections including 419 (impersonation), 469 (harming reputation), 471 (using forged document) and 500 (defamation) of the IPC.