Youth who had threatened Pune politicians, intended to implicate girlfriend

On Friday, a team of AEC apprehended the accused, Imran Shaikh from Kondhwa. It has been revealed that Shaikh committed all the acts to avenge the refusal of his girlfriend to marry him

SLUG: Crime Branch detains accused

In his bid to pin the blame on his girlfriend, the accused had threatened many politicians from the city, including former mayor Murlidhar Mohol. (HT PHOTO)

PUNE: For the past few days, political leaders from in and around Pune were being threatened for a ransom. Last week, two prominent politicians were asked to pay a sum of ₹30 lakh and received death threats if the sum was not paid.

Taking serious note of the untoward incidents, the Anti Extortion Cell (AEC) of the Crime Branch was tasked with the investigation of the case.

On Friday, a team of AEC apprehended the accused, Imran Shaikh from Kondhwa. It has been revealed that Shaikh committed all the acts to avenge the refusal of his girlfriend to marry him.

During the investigation, a team of cyber cell police gathered technical details such as Shaikh’s geolocation and sensitive data in order to track him down. Considering the common modus during all the threat calls, Shaikh was accordingly probed and it was ascertained that he would provide the car details of his girlfriend to all the politicians and would ask them to deposit the ransom in that car. By that, he intended to implicate her in the case by using her car details.

As per police information, the young man also threatened to kill his girlfriend for her refusal to marry him.

In his bid to pin the blame on his girlfriend, the accused had threatened the son of corporator Vasant More over a WhatsApp call in the first incident, and BJP leader Ganesh Bidkar later faced a similar situation.

Extortion was demanded in the name of former Mayor Muralidhar Mohol in the third incident. Avinash Bagwe, a former corporator, was recently threatened with an extortion demand of ₹30 lakh. Similarly, PCMC BJP President and MLA Mahesh Landge was threatened and asked to pay a ₹30 lakh ransom.

According to DCP (crime) Amol Zende, “Shaikh was arrested for extortion from political leaders in order to exact revenge on the girl who had rejected his marriage proposal. “Further investigation is underway to learn more about the case,” he added.