Maharashtra: Policeman, scribe, woman held for extortion on govt engineer's complaint

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A policeman and a journalist were among three persons arrested on Monday in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli for allegedly trying to extort money from a government engineer with the threat of a rape case, a police official said.

The engineer had said policeman Sushil Gavai, who was known to him, had booked a hotel room for him and two women in Nagpur for January 3, a release from the Gadchiroli police informed.

"As per the complainant, one of the women falsely accused him of rape. Gavai, journalist Ravikant Kamble and the two women sought Rs 10 lakh from him. Superintendent of Police Nilotpal directed the Crime Branch to nab the accused," he said.

Gavai, Kamble and one of the two women have been arrested for extortion and other offences, he added.

Meanwhile, Police has arrested four persons including a ward boy of a civic hospital in Mumbai who used his domain knowledge to temporarily hurt his 'clients' to help them secure medical documents so that they can lodge FIRs to implicate their enemies, an official said on Monday.

The main accused Vasu Thombre used a bizarre modus operandi wherein he would administer a poison-filled injection to one of the fingers of his client before breaking it. He would then take the client to hospital doctors to get medical documents mentioning the finger injury.

"The 'injured' person would then approach the police and lodge an FIR against those with whom he wanted to settle scores by claiming that he was assaulted," the official added.

Three other accused mainly acted on the field identifying the potential customers for Thombre. They used to charge Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000 per case, he said, adding that the other members of the gang are identified as Babu Nisar Sayyed, Samir Ishtiyak Hussain and Abdul Hameed Khan.

"The ward boy was exposed when a doctor at the civic-run Shatabdi Hospital became suspicious when one Faizan Ahmed Khan approached him for the treatment of a broken finger," the official added.

Khan was later taken to a police station where he spilled the beans. He told police that he wanted to frame three people over some issue with the residents of his housing society.

Police suspect that the gang has been involved in the crime for the past many months.

They were arrested on Sunday under sections 328 (causing hurt by means of poison) and 120-b (conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

A court remanded them to police custody till February 1.