Bizman lodges extortion complaint against Param Bir Singh, others

Businessman Anil Vedmehta has addressed the complaint to the senior inspector of the police station through his advocate claiming that he had been falsely implicated in an extortion case

Mumbai A city businessman filed a written complaint on Friday with the Santacruz police station against former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh, managing director of the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) Radheshyam Mopalwar former encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma, among others, on charges of extortion.

Police officials said that preliminary enquiry was being conducted on the complaint and no FIR has been registered yet. (ANI)

Police officials said that preliminary enquiry was being conducted on the complaint and no First Information Report (FIR) has been registered yet.

There are already five FIRs filed against Singh in various police stations across Mumbai Metropolitan Region between April 28 and August 20, 2021. In December 2021, the Mumbai crime branch filed a charge sheet against Singh, dismissed assistant police inspector Sachin Vaze and two others in an extortion case filed by a hotelier. The Supreme Court granted Singh interim protection from arrest in November.

Businessman Anil Vedmehta addressed the complaint to the senior inspector of the police station through advocate Ali Kaashif Khan Deshmukh, claiming that he had been falsely implicated in an extortion case registered at Kalwa police station in November 2017, in which stringent sections of the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA) were invoked.

Vedmehta claimed that the case against him was registered on the basis of a complaint lodged by Mopalwar, a senior Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer, who, Vedmehta claimed, was instrumental in breaking his marriage.

The businessman said that on November 7, 2017, four days after the FIR against him was registered, a truck rammed into his car, in what he claimed was an attempt on his life. Vedmehta said that he was not in the car at the time of the accident and survived.

The businessman further alleged that a few days after the incident, a certain Rajan Jain approached Vedmehta’s brother Sunil, demanding ₹5 crore on behalf of Pradeep Sharma, Singh (who was the then Thane police commissioner) and Mopalwar to settle the matter.

The complaint — HT has seen a copy — added that when Sunil Vedmehta expressed his inability to pay up, Sharma and the others offered to make arrangements to mortgage the businessman’s Juhu bungalow.

Eventually they forced his brother to settle the case in return for Vedmehta’s factory, and accordingly, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between Sunil Vedmehta and a certain Pradeep Singh (reported to be a close associate of Sharma). The complaint added that thereafter, they collected factory rent dues of ₹1 crore and ₹3.5 crore.

Based on these allegations, Vedmehta has urged police to register an FIR under sections 406, 417, 420, 383, 387, 383, 120(b), and others of the Indian Penal Code against the persons named in the complaint.

Sharma is currently behind bars in connection with the Antilia explosives scare and Mansukh Hiran murder case. Singh was the Mumbai police commissioner when an explosives-laden SUV was found parked on February 25, 2021, outside industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s house, Antilia, located on Carmichael road. A few days later, a Thane-based businessman to whom the car was traced, turned up dead in a creek on the outskirts of Mumbai. Vaze, who headed the Mumbai crime branch’s Criminal Intelligence Unit (CIU) was the initial investigating officer on the case.

However, within weeks, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over the case and eventually arrested Vaze for being the alleged “mastermind” of both crimes. The then home minister of Maharashtra Anil Deshmukh transferred Singh for shoddy investigation by the Mumbai police. Following this. Singh wrote an open letter addressed to the chief minister and other high-ranking officials claiming that Deshmukh forced his officers, including Vaze, to extort money from various establishments, including restaurants, hotels and hookah bars.

According to the NIA investigation, Sharma was part of the conspiracy to kill Hiran, who was smothered in a car by Sharma’s henchmen. A day before the murder, Vaze reportedly paid Sharma a large sum of money.