Ahmedabad: Surendra Shetty, father of actress Shilpa Shetty has confessed of having initially contacted Purshottam Solanki, a former Gujarat Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Minister and his brother Hira Solanki to help "recover" the dues pending to his daughter by Praful Sarees, police said.

Surat police on June 15 said that Shetty had said this during interrogation by Umra police. However, Shetty's advocate has refuted this, saying his client had made no such confession.

Inspector B V Ramani, who was heading the investigations in the alleged extortion case, said Surendra had confessed that Mumbai based contacts had advised him to approach the Solanki brothers to bring about a settlement.

"Shetty said he had met Solanki a couple of occasions, but did not get any concrete help in the matter," Ramani said.

He however, did not speak more on the matter, adding further interrogation would reveal more in this angle.

However, Shetty's lawyer S V Raju said the "Solanki factor" was new to him and to the case and his client has not made any such confession before Surat police.

"Surendra has not made any confession in this regard. Police have introduced this new angle without our knowledge. Moreover, the driver Dilip who has been named was sacked by the Shetty's earlier and he might have said something in this regard," Raju said.

Police have registered a case against Shilpa's parents and underworld don Fazlu Rehman for allegedly extorting money from owner of Praful Sarees, Pankaj Agarwal. They alleged that Shilpa's parents had "hired" a gangster to recover Rs 80 lakh payable to the actress by Agarwal for acting in an advertising film.

PTI