Yadav after his arrest, And (below) Seema Azad. (Naeem Ansari)

Lucknow, June 14: A former minister in the Mayavati government was arrested today after his driver allegedly spilled the beans on the murder of a college girl during a lie test.

Mayavati had forced Anandsen Yadav to resign last November amid allegations that he had got Shashi, 24, killed because she had threatened to reveal their affair.

The Bahujan Samaj Party MLA from Faizabad was picked up from Lucknow’s Ghazipur area after the police secured a non-bailable arrest warrant against him yesterday.

“Faizabad police will get transit remand tomorrow,” said Lucknow SSP Akhil Kumar.

Shashi, a law student from Faizabad, had disappeared last October 22 and her body was never found. Her father alleged she was close to Anandsen and was with him that day.

A senior Faizabad officer said the last entry in Shashi’s diary incriminated Anandsen. He added that the MLA’s driver had confessed during a narco-analysis test that he had himself throttled the girl and dumped the body in a river. The driver allegedly said Shashi was pregnant.

Seema Azad, a woman said to be close to Anandsen, was arrested last week in connection with the murder. S.C. Pandey, a deputy superintendent, said the diaries of Seema and Shashi “have revealed startling facts about the former minister’s involvement with women”.

Shashi received threats from Seema before she went missing, her father Yogendra Kumar has alleged.

The scandal mirrors that involving another former Mayavati minister, Amarmani Tripathi, who is serving a life term for the murder of poet Madhumita Shukla. Tripathi, who was a member of Mayavati’s ministry in 2002-03, is said to have had an affair with Madhumita and got her killed after she got pregnant.

Anandsen is the second minister from the current BSP government, after Jamuna Nishad, to have been arrested in a murder case. Nishad had raided a police station with his supporters, who shot a constable dead last week. He was sacked before his arrest.