Mumbai: A police officer was among two people arrested on Sunday while two others have been booked for allegedly extorting ₹5 lakh from a Gujarat-based businessman by threatening to file an FIR against him.
According to the complainant Niraj Tandel, who owns a cake factory in Navsari in Gujarat, he was approached by his friends Sagar Patel (55) and Dilip Mehta (34) on August 21. The two had told Tandel that their acquaintances in Vasai named Kishore Patel and Mahesh Sharma needed urgent cash and would pay him double if he lent them the money.
On August 23 at 2.15 pm, 32-year-old Tandel and his friends arrived at a three-star hotel near Vasai where they were supposed to meet Kishore Patel and Mahesh Sharma.
According to Amar Marathe, a police inspector from Pelhar police station, the men were supposed to discuss the investment that Tandel agreed on in the telephonic conversation with the duo. While the men waited, three policemen — one of them identified as constable Khandu Ganpat Dongre — attached to the Pelhar police station situated on the highway near Vasai, approached Tandel. “The policemen were in the uniform of constables due to which I did not suspect anything,” said Tandel who returned to Gujarat.
The police officers said that when Tandel was at the spot with the others, the policemen told him that wanted to search his vehicle as they suspected he had black money, “The policemen told Tandel that he would have to accompany them to the police station, where an FIR will be lodged against him. They also threatened him of arrest,” said a police officer from Pelhar police station.
The officers then allegedly demanded ₹5 lakh from Tandel if he did not want to accompany them to the police station for legal proceedings and drop the FIR that they were going to file. Tandel gave the money to the police officers and left the spot with the other men. “When Tandel realised that he had been looted, he approached the police in the wee hours of the next day and lodged a complaint against Dongre and his accomplices, including Tandel’s friends,” the police officer added.
“We have arrested two people, including Dongre, on the charge of extortion and are tracing five more men including two other policemen and Patel, Mehta and Sharma who had conspired against Tandel,” said the officer.