Extortion case filed against Mumbai Police DCP, two other cops

Police have filed an extortion case against Mumbai Deputy Commissioner of Police Akbar Pathan and two other cops, one of them arrested for the killing of businessman Mansukh Hiran, on a complaint by a man who is an accused in a cheating case, an official said on Thursday.

The complainant, Gurusharan Singh Chavan, faces a cheating case lodged at the Andheri MIDC police station in suburban Mumbai last year. He is one of the accused in a criminal case related to cheating people on the pretext of selling a "rice puller" metal device, claiming it had magical properties to pull rice out of grains, police said.

The extortion FIR against Pathan and the two others was registered by the Amboli police on Wednesday on orders of the metropolitan magistrate's court in Andheri, the official said.

The others named in the FIR are inspector Chimaji Adhav, who was earlier with the crime branch, and dismissed Assistant Police Inspector (API) Sunil Mane, arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with the murder of Thane businessman Hiran, a case linked to the bomb scare near industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s residence in February, he said.

In his complaint, Chavan has claimed the trio took Rs 17 lakh from him via a police informer for not framing him in a cheating and forgery case, the official said. The three policemen allegedly asked for more money, but when he refused to pay, they filed a criminal case related to cheating and forgery against him at the MIDC police station. Pathan, who earlier served as DCP (Crime), is currently attached to the local arms division, while inspector Adhav is attached to the Byculla police station.

This is the second FIR against Pathan. In July, real estate developer Shyamsunder Agarwal had lodged a complaint at the Marine Drive police station against two builders and six police officers, including Pathan, who were probing a case related to Agarwal's alleged nexus with the underworld. In his complaint, Agarwal had claimed Pathan demanded Rs 50 lakh and a flat in Bhayander on Mumbai's outskirts for not invoking the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against him. Agarwal had also named former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh in his complaint.