Pune: The Pune police on Thursday arrested Indian Administrative Services (IAS) probationer Puja Khedkar’s mother for allegedly threatening a group of farmers with a gun over a land dispute, days after she went absconding when police opened an investigation over the incident.
According to the police, Puja’s mother Manorama was apprehended from a lodge in Mahad in Raigad district of Maharashtra on Thursday morning and was subsequently remanded in police custody by a district court till July 20. Efforts are underway to trace Puja’s father and retired senior state government official Dileep Khedkar, who has also been booked along with five others in the case and has gone missing since then, police added.
“Manorama Khedkar was apprehended from a hotel in Mahad in Raigad district and she was brought to Pune. After the completion of formalities, she was placed under arrest,” Pune Rural superintendent of police (SP) Pankaj Deshmukh said.
Police said five teams were formed to trace all the accused in the case.
Puja Khedkar first came under scanner when her purported special privileges, and demands for further allowances not accorded to officers at her level came to light. Allegations that she made false claims to secure her position have since abounded, prompting the government to relieve her of her post and the central government to initiate a probe.
{{/usCountry}}Puja Khedkar first came under scanner when her purported special privileges, and demands for further allowances not accorded to officers at her level came to light. Allegations that she made false claims to secure her position have since abounded, prompting the government to relieve her of her post and the central government to initiate a probe.
{{/usCountry}}Officers have so far also arrested two unidentified men and two unidentified women in connection with the alleged threatening of farmers.
Manorama’s counsel Nikhil Malani said police had sought custody for five days but the court granted them two days. “Initially, when an FIR was registered against Manorama, all sections included in it were bailable. But yesterday, police added Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code, which is non-bailable,” he said.
On July 12, as a video of Manorama threatening the group of farmers with a pistol surfaced on social media, police registered a case against her on the basis of a complaint by one of the farmers, Pandharinath Kondiba Pasalkar (65).
In the remand application, which HT has seen, assistant inspector Pradip Sankpal of the local crime branch (LCB) said Manorama “owned more land in Mulshi and the police have to find out if she had used a weapon to threaten people in a similar manner”.
Sankpal added, “Police want to recover the weapon, four-wheeler she used to travel to the plot and ascertain the names and addresses of the individuals named in the FIR.” Khedkars’ counsel and advocate Ravindra Sutar said the pistol was used in self-defence.
On Tuesday, the Maharashtra government relieved Puja from her probationary post and directed her to report back to the central government’s training centre for bureaucrats in Mussoorie within a week.
The complaints against Khedkar included her use of beacons on her private Audi, a VIP registration number, and that she sought privileged office space. Later, there were indications that she secured her position by claiming to qualify for quotas meant for OBCs and Persons with Benchmark Disabilities (PwBD) without being eligible for them, and that she falsified her age in order to apply for the UPSC recruitment.
On Monday, Khedkar dismissed the charges against her, saying “the truth will come out”.