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‘Police mitra’ Kasat’s custody extended; cops claim recovery of Rs 5 lakh extortion money
Kasat was arrested on Saturday in an extortion case registered on a complaint by Hemant Adsul, brother of Manoj Adsul, who is also named in a related, but separate extortion case.
The police custody of Jayesh Kasat, 42, a ‘police mitra’ arrested in an extortion case, was extended by three days as the police claimed to have recovered Rs 5 lakh extortion money from him on Tuesday.
Kasat was arrested on Saturday in an extortion case registered on a complaint by Hemant Adsul, brother of Manoj Adsul, who is also named in a related, but separate extortion case.
“The investigation officer has said that they now need Kasat for recovery of his phone and to match his voice samples with the call records,” said advocate Vijaysinh Jadhav, who was the public prosecutor in the court of Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) PS Jondhale.
Manoj Adsul is himself embroiled in a case of extortion of Dr Deepak Prabhakar Rasne, 69, an Ayurveda medicine practitioner, and his son Dr Sahil Rasne, 34, who specialises in medical gastroenterology. He is fighting to get ad-interim protection from arrest in the court of additional sessions judge Jayant Raje.
On Tuesday, public prosecutor Leena Pathak argued against granting interim protection to Adsul in court.
“We have brought transaction details of the Rs 75,00,000 on record. We have shown how the money was circulated among his family members. The people who had helped Dr Rasne with money to collect Rs 75 lakh, along with the reason why Dr Rasne had asked for the money, is with us. There are text exchanges between Dr Rasne and Adsul as well,” said advocate Pathak.
She said that the defence has asked for ad-interim protection on the ground that Adsul had given a hand-loan to Dr Rasne and was simply asking for the money back. Advcoate Pathak claimed that there is another complaint of extortion against Adsul in Pune city as well.
The extortion chain began after a woman filed an allegedly fake case of sexual harassment against Dr Sahil Rasne. Kasat and Adsul were among the people who offered to help Dr Rasne and his son out of the legal situation. However, under the pretext of helping Dr Rasne, Adsul allegedly extorted Rs 75 lakh from him and was asking for more money, as per Dr Rasne’s complaint. As per Hemant Adsul’s complaint, Kasat appraoched him on behalf of Dr Rasne and threatened him with false cases, lest he pay back Dr Rasne, albiet through him. Therefore, the alleged Rs 5 lakh that was paid by Adsul were kept by Kasat and not passed on to Dr Rasne, as he had promised to do.
“Our argument is that, first, why did the doctor wait for six months to file a complaint? Which person will accept extortion money through cheque transaction? And third, why was the case against me (Adsul) registered only when I went to the police station with recordings of Kasat? I went as a complainant, instead a case was registered against me,” said defence advocate Vijaysinh Thombre, representing Adsul.