30 April,2022 08:04 AM IST | Mumbai | Anurag Kamble
Ganesh Jadhav, an accused, arrested by Tilak Nagar police in the Ghatkopar developer case; (right) Arrested accused advocate Santosh Sanjkar who had been harassing a developer for around 10 years
Two city-based builders helped the Mumbai police lay traps and nab three accused, who harassed and blackmailed the developers to stall their projects by threatening to complain to the investigating agencies, in two separate cases within a week. The accused had demanded Rs 75 lakh and Rs 7 crore from the builders, both of whom have projects in the eastern suburbs.
In one of the cases, a developer from Ghatkopar on April 11 received a call from a person who introduced himself as Ganesh Jadhav, vice-president of Maharashtra Anti Corruption Bureau, and claimed that he had documents on misappropriation of funds by the developer while sanctioning home loans for his project in Bhandup.
"The caller asked the builder to meet at a Thane bar on April 15. During the meeting, he demanded Rs 75 lakh for not taking up the matter with investigating agencies such as ED and CID. When the developer said he could not pay the said amount, accused Jadhav said he would not let the builder continue his project," said an officer from Tilak Nagar police station.
The cop added that the developer sought some time to gather the money and approached the police. Accordingly, a team of Tilak Nagar police laid a trap near the bar and arrested Jadhav while accepting R2 lakh from the developer on April 28.
"The accused actually works in a security firm as a supervisor and had somehow gotten hold of the papers regarding the builder's deals," said Inspector Sarita Chavan, adding, "We are retrieving data from his mobile phone to know if he has done this with any other developer."
In a similar case, the Anti-Extortion Cell last week apprehended two accused for blackmailing a Chembur-based builder, who was instrumental in developing a SRA project at Amar Mahal.
Chaitanya Mehta from Arihant Realtors said, "I started working on this project at Panchsheel Nagar 12 years ago and the accused have been harassing me for the past 10 years, trying to stall the project. They even staged agitations against us for the past two years. This year, however, they asked me to pay them money to stop the opposition."
According to police, two accused met an employee of Arihant Realtors on March 24 and demanded Rs 7 crore to stop the agitations. When the employee reported the same to Mehta, he insisted on meeting the accused and accordingly set up a meeting on April 6. When the accused made their demand, Mehta said he would not pay such a huge amount, following which the blackmailers lowered it to Rs 5 crore.
"Advocate Santosh Sanjkar, Arjun Multani, Nasir Sheikh and others were harassing us to stall the rehabilitation of slum dwellers by inciting religious sentiments with misinformation, despite required approvals. I was told to pay Rs 7 crore," said Mehta.
The developer then approached the Mumbai police and the case was subsequently taken over the Anti-Extortion Cell.
The AEC laid a trap and arrested Sanjkar and Multani while accepting money on April 22. A case has been registered against the duo in DB Marg police station under sections 384 (extortion) 385 (putting someone's life in danger for extortion) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.
"There are four accused in the case. We have arrested two of them while the others are at large. They constantly harassed the complainant, took out morchas and staged dharna to delay the project," said an officer from AEC, adding, "Some of the accused were backed by local politicians, so we laid a trap to avoid any attempts to save the culprits."
