Maharashtra: IPS officer Saurabh Tripathi, named in extortion case, posted in State Intelligence Department

Saurabh Tripathi. File Pic

Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Saurabh Tripathi, who was reinstated by the Maharashtra government after his suspension in connection with an extortion case, has been posted as the deputy commissioner of police in the State Intelligence Department (SID), an official said on Monday.

The state home department on Monday issued an order on Tripathi's new posting at the SID, he said.

Tripathi was reinstated in the police force in June, more than a year after his suspension over his alleged involvement in an extortion case involving 'angadias' (traditional couriers), the official said.

The state's Suspension Review Committee took the decision to revoke Tripathi's suspension, he said.

The 2010 batch IPS officer was suspended while he was posted as the deputy commissioner of police of Mumbai's Zone-II after an angadia filed an extortion complaint naming him and three others in LT Marg police station in February last year.

An inspector, an assistant inspector and a sub-inspector, who were posted at L T Marg police station, were arrested in the case at the time, while Tripathi was placed under suspension in March 2022 pending a departmental enquiry.

Meanwhile, police Monday arrested three more men in connection with the attack on four Scheduled Caste persons who were hung upside down from a tree and beaten with sticks in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district.

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According to the police, the victims, among them two minors, were allegedly stripped, hung upside down from a tree and thrashed with sticks by a group of six men on suspicion of stealing a goat and some pigeons at Haregaon village in Shrirampur taluka of Ahmednagar on August 25.

A video of the incident surfaced on social media, following which the police on Saturday arrested one person in connection with the attack.

The police have now apprehended three more men, including the main accused Yuvraj Galande (35), for their involvement in the crime, while a search is on for two other accused, the official said.

Galande, who was on the run, was nabbed from Pune by a team of Ahmednagar police late Sunday night, he said.

He was brought to Ahmednagar and placed under arrest after interrogation. The two absconding accused are workers employed at Galande's farm, the official said.

Based on a complaint lodged by one of the victims, a case has been registered under sections 307 (attempt to murder), 364 (kidnapping) and other relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the official said. (Agencies)