Pune police detain youth for Rs 3 crore extortion bid on builder

A highly qualified youth has been arrested by Pune police for allegedly blackmailing and demanding Rs three crores from a builder to settle the dispute between him and the other flat owners in the society.

The arrested youth has been identified as Amitkumar Prakashkumar Bodhe (30), a resident of Opulent society flat number 204 in Narhe. The incident came to light, when the builder Gopinath Lipane approached Sinhagad road police station and lodged a case of extortion against Bodhe.

Inspector Vishnu Jagtap of Sinhagad police station said, "Amitkumar has a post graduate degree in advertisment business studies and for last two months he was jobless. He along with his parents had booked two BHK flat in complainant project for Rs 32 lakh and had already paid Rs 25 lakh. He refused to pay the remaining amount of Rs 7 lakh which resulted in a fight between him and the builder. Bodhe then gathered various information under Right to Information and started blackmailing builder Lipane."

Bodhe has allegedly even filed compalints against the builder to various District administrative office like town planning office and other civic administrative offices. Upon his complaint, the builder had got stay order on his project.

Assistant police inspector Devendra Shinde who is investigating the case said, "Bodhe later started blackmailing him and demanded Rs three crore from him to settled the case which include Rs 25 lakh that he had paid to him for flat booking and remaing Rs 2.75 cores meant to be given to him and around Rs 1.75 crores to the other members of society. Bodhe had also promise to take back all the cases that he had filed against builder with various bureaucratic offices. Later he started calling builder's relative and started defaming him but on Wednesday late night we arrested him while accepting the amount."

When contacted Bodhe's relative he said, "Bodhe has been falsely implicated in this case."