A hawker has been found to be operating an organised crime syndicate right from CSMT to Kalyan wherein he extorted money from other hawkers at various railway stations and acquired properties worth crores in the process. The Government Railway Police (GRP) acted on a single complaint from another hawker and booked the accused hawker, Santoshkumar Singh alias Bablu Thakur, 43, under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA). Eight members of his group, including his wife, have also been arrested. 

According to the GRP, Singh has purchased properties worth crores in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and at his native place Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh, through the proceeds of the alleged extortion racket. The GRP has found 10 properties, including flats and houses in chawls, registered in Singh and his wife Rita’s names in Dadar, Parel, Kalyan and Turbhe and five-acre farmland in Sultanpur. The total value of the properties is around Rs 5 crore on paper but the market value of all of them together is more than Rs 10 crore. “Most of the properties are located in chawls which are expected to go for redevelopment. It appears that he invested all the proceeds from the extortion racket mainly into chawls so as to gain a profit when they are redeveloped,” said Dnyaneshwar Katkar, senior police inspector, Dadar GRP.