Palghar : The Manor police on Thursday arrested nine persons, seven of whom posed as policemen and two as journalists when they tried to extort Rs 15 lakh from a transporter who was delivering banned tobacco products from Vapi to Vasai.
The accused had allegedly kidnapped the driver and also had forced the transporter to make calls to arrange money. The cops recovered two high end cars used by these alleged imposters and found that one of the number plates was bogus.
The complainant, Rajan Pandey (27), runs a transport business and acts as middleman between the drivers and the people who want to shift stocks from one place to another. He got a call from ‘cops’ who asked him to come to rescue his vehicle, a tempo MH-04-PF-667 and the tobacco stock. On reaching the hotel on the Mumbai – Ahmedabad highway he was surprised to see nobody waiting for him. After calling the alleged fake cops he was told to come to another spot as they doubted that he would be followed. Once meeting the entire gang (around 13 members) he was threatened with legal consequences and was told to cough up Rs 15 lakh. When Pandey offered Rs 20,000 he was allegedly slapped by the gang members. He broke down and started to negotiate the amount as he was again slapped when he asked for their identity cards. After some tough negotiation the amount was brought down to Rs 10 lakh and was told to get it at the earliest.
Composing himself, Pandey, who had gone to meet the extortionist with two of his friends, directed one of them to visit the Manor police station and narrate the entire incident to the cops and ask for help as he found something fishy. The cops immediately swung into action and ended this almost 24 hour kidnapping by arresting nine accused on the busy highway.
While speaking to FPJ, Sr PI of Manor police station said, “There were three more people who ran away during the chaos while the cops were busy making arrests and my driver also ran away. His cell phone is also switched off. I am cooperating with the cops to find my driver and the remaining accused.”
Vishal Rajemahadik
