Mumbai: The Mahim police arrested 7 persons for posing as crime branch officers and abducting a businessman to extort Rs13 lakh. The accused were arrested on Friday evening within 48 hours of the crime.
Police said the accused were facing financial crisis and hatched a plan to kidnap to make quick money. According to police sources, on July 23, three unidentified men posed as Crime Branch officers and stopped the victim, Harshal Manjarekar’s car near Raheja junction.
The trio threatened him and forcibly took Rs2 lakh cash kept in the car. Moreover, one of them drove the car to Panvel-Pen road and asked Manjrekar to call his driver to get more cash from the house.
The driver got Rs10 lakh cash and gave it to the accused trio, but Manjarekar was so scared that he did not report the matter to police immediately.
Over a week later, he gathered the courage to file a complaint at the Mahim police station on July 31. The police filed an FIR in the matter and immediately launched a manhunt to locate the accused trio.
Police managed to gather clues from CCTV footages and local informers. Police arrested the seven accused, Kalpesh Mali (39), Suhas Kanade (28), Vinayak Mhatre (34), Sameer Mhatre (44), Vishal Koli (32), Anil Bhor (28) and Mahesh Bhoir (39) on Friday evening.
“They hatched a plan to abduct him and extort money, as they thought he would be a soft target. All the cash and gold taken from the victim were seized,” said a cop.
