Three police officers, including a Deputy Commissioner of Police and dismissed inspector in the Antilia bomb scare case, have been booked by the Mumbai police for allegedly extorting Rs 17 lakh from a property dealer.
Identifying the three police personnel named in the extortion case as Deputy Commissioner of Police Akbar Pathan, Police Inspector Chimaji Adhav and a dismissed inspector Sunil Mane, a senior police official said that three accused police personnel had been booked for allegedly conspiring, intimidating and extorting money from a 50-year-old property dealer.
Earlier, Pathan had been named as one of the accused in the extortion case registered at the Marine Drive police station in July in which former Mumbai Police commissioner Param Bir Singh is a co-accused.
Mane is currently behind the bars for allegedly planting a gelatine-laden Scorpio car outside Mukesh Ambani’s residence and murdering businessman Mansukh Hiren.
In a complaint lodged with the Amboli police station, an Andheri resident Gurusharansingh Chauhan has alleged that between October 20, 2019, and February 29, 2020, the accused three police officers had allegedly extorted Rs 17 lakh by threatening him that they would implicate him in a false case if he failed to pay the extortion money.
In his complaint, Chauhan has accused DCP Pathan, Inspector Adhav and dismissed police officer Mane of cheating, fraud, extortion, threats of murder, assault.
Chauhan told police that the trio threatened to lodge false cases against him and then demanded Rs 17 lakh as extortion money to save him from the consequences.
Chauhan said that when the three accused demanded more money from him, he refused to oblige them, the trio heaped abuses on him and assaulted him at his office in Andheri west. He also alleged that the accused also forced him to sign some blank papers before filing a complaint against him with the MIDC Police Station.
This is the second case registered against Pathan. Earlier he had been booked by the Marine Lines Police in an alleged Rs 15 lakh corruption case, along with former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh and others, after a complaint lodged with them by builder Shyamsunder Agarwal.
Following Chauhan’s complaint, the Amboli Police have registered an FIR against DCP Pathan and PI Adhav and ex-cop Mane under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.
DCP Pathan has earlier been booked by the Marine Lines Police in an alleged corruption case of Rs 50 lakh, along with former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh and others, following a complaint by a builder Shyamsunder Agarwal.
Incidentally, Mane is also an accused in the investigations into the sensational case of planting a SUV with 20 gelatin sticks near Mukesh Amani's residence, Antilia.
After his alleged involvement in the bomb scare case and his subsequent arrest, Mane was dismissed from the police force in June this year.