Within days after controversial probationary IAS officer Puja Khedkar was shunted back to her Mussoorie-based alma mater on disciplinary grounds, the police arrested her mother Manorama Khedkar on Thursday for allegedly threatening some farmers at gunpoint to grab their land at Mulshi taluka in Pune district.
Manorama — who had been absconding for nearly a week after a video showing her threatening farmers at Mulshi in a bid to usurp their land went viral — was traced to a small lodge, Parvati Niwas, near Mahad town in Raigad district where the visiting Pune rural police reached and arrested her. Manorama was later brought back to Pune where a court Judicial Magistrate First Class SG Barde remanded her in police custody till July 20. A former Sarpanch (village headwoman) of Bhalgaon in Pune district, Manorama had been staying at the lodge under a fake name of ‘Indu Dnyandev Dhakane’ with another person identified as ‘Dadasaheb Dnyandev Dhakane’. Acting on a complaint lodged by farmer Pandharinath Pasalkar (65), the Paud police had registered a complaint against Manorama and her husband Diliprao Khedkar, both residents of National Housing Society in Baner, and one Ambadas Khedkar of Ambi village in Haveli, and other unidentified persons.
