Woman held for trying to blackmail minister. Will probe if she acted alone: Cops

The 40-year-old woman, who was arrested from Indore on a complaint by Maharashtra minister Dhananjay Munde, was brought to Mumbai and produced before a judge who remanded her in police custody for two days.

MUMBAI: A 40-year-old woman in Indore accused of trying to extort ₹5 crore from Maharashtra social justice minister Dhananjay Munde has been arrested, police said on Thursday.

The woman was arrested on a complaint by NCP leader and Maharashtra social justice minister Dhananjay Munde. (HT File Photo)

The woman, sister of Munde’s former live-in partner, was arrested by the Mumbai crime branch’s unit 2 and produced before a magistrate. She was remanded in police custody for two days after the crime branch officers told the judge that they wanted to ascertain if she was acting alone or was incited to trouble the political leader. Police told the judge that three mobile phones, ₹2.16 lakh cash and a laptop were also seized by the police team.

The arrest follows a complaint by the minister, a Nationalist Congress Party legislator, that the woman, who accused him of rape and later withdrew the complaint, has now threatened to defame him if he didn’t pay ₹5 crore.

The woman accused the minister of rape in a police complaint filed in January 2021 but withdrew the allegation within days after the police did not find any evidence to back up her charge. On social media, the woman said that she was under stress over the court case between the minister and her sister, who earlier was in a relationship with the minister and lived with him.

In his extortion complaint, Munde told the police that the woman recently contacted him with the ₹5 crore demand, threatening that she will claim that she withdrew the rape charges last year under pressure from the minister if he didn’t pay.

Munde, a legislator from Parli assembly constituency in the Marathwada region’s Beed district, said in his complaint that he had been in a relationship with the accused’s sister and had two children with her. In 2019, however, their relationship soured and they separated.

“After I became minister, my former live-in partner started demanding money from me and threatened to defame me if I did not fulfil her demand,” he said in his police complaint lodged with the Santacruz police station.

“The court passed an order in my favour on December 16, 2020, and also put an injunction on my live-in partner, barring her from making any statements against me on social media,” Munde said in the complaint.

His former partner complied with the court order but in December 2020 and January 2021, her sister started demanding money from him and filed a rape complaint against him with the Oshiwara police on January 11, 2021. She withdrew the complaint 11 days later.

But she continued to make demands of him. In February and March 2022, the minister alleged that she demanded ₹5 crore, a commercial property and expansive phones. Munde said he paid her ₹3 lakh and bought her a mobile phone worth ₹1.42 lakh. But she allegedly wanted more, leading him to file the police complaint.