Angadia extortion case: Charge sheet filed against three cops

The 1,100-page charge sheet contains documentary and electronic evidence, statements of about 70 witnesses, including statements of seven people

Mumbai The Mumbai crime branch has filed a charge sheet against three police officers arrested in connection with the Angadia extortion case.

The charge sheet was filed against Wangate, Kadam and Jamdade and after collecting further evidence, the supplementary charge sheet will be filed against Gaud and Mishra, said the officer (Hindustan Times)

The 1,100-page charge sheet contains documentary and electronic evidence, statements of about 70 witnesses, including statements of seven people recorded under section 164 CrPC before metropolitan magistrates, said a crime branch officer.

The crime intelligence unit (CIU) of the city crime branch, which is probing the case, has arrested five accused - police inspector Om Wangate, assistant police inspector Nitin Kadam, police sub inspector Samadhan Jamdade of the LT Marg police station and wanted former deputy commissioner of police Saurabh Tripathi’s brother in-law Ashutosh Mishra, who is a SGST officer in Uttar Pradesh and Tripathi’s domestic help Pappu Gaud. Police have also named Tripathi’s father as an accused.

The charge sheet was filed against Wangate, Kadam and Jamdade and after collecting further evidence, the supplementary charge sheet will be filed against Gaud and Mishra, said the officer.

Tripathi’s anticipatory bail plea was rejected by the sessions court in the first week of April. He had approached the Supreme Court and filed a petition requesting to transfer the case from Mumbai police to Central Bureau of Investigation.

The extortion case was registered at LT Marg police station on February 18 against three policemen, Wangate, Kadam and Jamdade alleging that they had extorted ₹19 lakh from Angadias in south Mumbai last December under Tripathi’s instruction. Tripathi was DCP zone 2 and had gone incommunicado from very next day after the case was registered and he is still wanted in the case. Tripathi was named as an accused after the key accused, Wangate, allegedly revealed his name in the interrogation saying that he was acting on Tripathi’s verbal directions. The state government suspended Tripathi on March 22.

As per FIR, the action on rogue police officers was initiated after Yogeshbhai Gandhi, Jatin Shah, Madhusudan Rawal and Maganbhai Prajapati and others of Bhuleshwar Angadia association met additional commissioner Dilip Sawant on December 7, 2021 and lodged a written complaint. Sawant informed the commissioner of police through joint commissioner (law and order) about the complaint and then police commissioner Hemant Nagrale had ordered him to conduct a preliminary enquiry.

Sawant recorded statements of victim Angadia service providers, witnesses to the incidents, accused police officers and also viewed footage of the CCTV cameras installed at Pophalwadi area, Mumbadevi police beat chowki and LT Marg police station.

“The inquiry revealed that Vangate, Kadam and Jamdade on December 2, 3, 4 and 6 wrongfully restrained and extorted money from Angadias from Paphalwadi area by reporting them to the Income Tax department,” states the FIR.

Sawant found substance in the allegations that the three police officers were involved in extortion and robbery. Their alleged illegal acts were also corroborated by the CCTV camera footage of the Mumbadevi police beat chowki, LT Marg police station and the Bhuleshwar market areas, Sawant mentioned in the FIR.