Mumbai Crime: RTI activist arrested for extorting money from developer

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A 46-year old RTI activist was arrested red-handed while he was accepting extortion money from a Govandi Based Private Developer. The accused has been identified as Prashant Gudekar, a resident of Dattaguru Cooperative housing society at Hanuman Nagar in Govandi.

According to Ajay Sawant, Senior inspector AEC, "Gudekar demanded Rs 80 lakh from the developer but after negotiation, the deal was finalised in Rs 12.5 lakh. On Monday evening, we caught him red-handed while he was accepting extortion amount for the second time."

Gudekar had filed a complaint against the developer who is handling an SRA project comprising of 57 rooms in Gavandi area, where one of the rooms was owned by Gudekar.

"Gudekar got his flat but filed a complaint against the builder to the BMC, SRA office and RERA department for not following norms of the project due to which the authorities had issued a stop-work notice," said an AEC official.

Recently, the project was completed and the builder was supposed to get an occupation certificate (OC) from the concerned department in the BMC, added official.

Once again, Gudekar began threatening the developer and demanded Rs 80 lakh for not filing a complaint in regards to the project. The complainant then approached AEC office and registered a case against Gudekar.

After that, the AEC officials laid a trap under the jurisdiction of the Govandi police. When Gudekar came to accept extortion money, he was nabbed by police.

Gudekar had earlier taken Rs 1 lakh from the complainant. Gudekar was produced in court on Tuesday and was remanded in police custody till January 25. Police are still questioning him to find out if he has extorted money from other developers in Mumbai.

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