Thane: The Thane Nagar police have arrested Tariq Parveen, a close aide of fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim in an extortion case registered by builder and bookie, Ketan Tanna in July, 2021.
The extortion case was registered against former police commissioner Param Bir Singh, encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma, gangster Ravi Pujari among 25 others.
The police said Tariq Abdul Karim Merchant alias Tariq Parven (55), a resident of Crawford market was arrested on Friday. "The police took over his custody from jail. He was produced in court on Saturday and remanded in police custody till September 22," said advocate Sagar Kadam, representing the complainant Tanna.
Kadam further added Tariq was the second accused arrested in the case. The Thane Nagar police earlier arrested Sanjay Punamiya (56) a builder. "Tariq along with co-accused had demanded Rs 50 lakh from a Dr Dhiraj Sharma from Nashik. The amount was settled at Rs 20 lakh.
Tariq took the amount on behalf of former police inspector Pradeep Sharma and Rajkumar Kothmire. The police are checking his involvement and the trail of money," added Kadam.
Tanna in his police statement alleged that the accused threatened to file a false case against him and bookie Sonu Jalan and killing them in an encounter. They also demanded money in return for not implicating them in false cases.
The Thane Nagar police investigating the matter have yet to arrest the 25 accused in the case. "We are checking the amount Tariq accepted from one of the witnesses, Dhiraj Sharma. Also, have to check who Tariq gave the cash to," said a police officer.
The other accused include then deputy commissioner of police Deepak Devraj, assistant commissioner of police NT Kadam, police inspector Rajkumar Kothmire, ASI More, police constables Chaudhary, Vikas Dabade, Ritesh Shah, Bimal Agarwal, Gangster Ravi Pujari, Anil Singh, Bachi Singh, Zuber Mujawar, Sunil Desai, Manish Shah, Kishore Agarwal, Barkha Agarwal, Binu Varghese, Deva Bhanushali, Ankit Bhanushali, Vishal Kariya, Pradeep Sodani, Prashant Kothari, Deepak Kupar and Nagesh.