Mumbai Crime: Man stripped naked, filmed, assaulted over cash transfer

The accused were arrested on Sunday

The Chembur police on Sunday arrested five people for brutally assaulting, stripping, filming and extorting a man who handles their chit fund because he took their money for personal use instead of depositing it in their account.

The group of accused are seven daily wage labourers, who collect their earnings in a chit fund, from which they can withdraw money on a rotational basis as a loan, without any documentation. This account has been managed for the last six months by victim Nemai Naik, 32, who is a labour contractor. However, Naik had stopped depositing the money given by the others into the account and was using it for personal use. This hampered the money rotation process.

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Beaten up
Soon, members began noticing the lack of money and confronted Naik about it. He, in turn, kept giving excuses and avoided meeting them. On August 9, they decided to teach him a lesson. Seven of them visited the Santoshi Mata temple in Chembur, caught hold of Naik and asked him to sit on a bike. Naik said in his complaint that they took him to a house behind a temple in Vikhroli, tied him up with a rope and asked him to remove his clothes at knifepoint. Once he took off his clothes, they assaulted him and filmed him in the nude.

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An officer said, "The accused locked him in that room, called his brother and demanded Rs 11 lakh, warning him that they would harm his brother if he dared to tell anyone. After that, Naik's brother said he would not be able to pay such a huge amount, after which the accused asked for Rs 5 lakh."

Let him go
The accused then realised that Naik was in bad condition on account of the beating and feared they'd be prosecuted if anything were to happen to him. Because of that, they allowed him to go home after taking his valuables worth Rs 37,000.

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Naik visited the Chembur police station and lodged a FIR against Nilesh More, Mukesh Nair, Sameer Sheikh, Shanu, Ganesh Saste alias Matu, Gurunath Chavan and Rahul Kadam. Five of them have been arrested. Shahaji Umap, deputy commissioner of police, Zone 6 said, "We have arrested five of the men and are investigating the case."

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