Five arrested for attempt to blackmail BMC official

Mumbai, Sep 24 (PTI) The Anti Extortion Cell (AEC) of Mumbai police has arrested five men for allegedly demanding Rs 55 lakh from a BMC engineer by threatening to expose his ‘forged’ academic documents, an official said on Tuesday.

The accused called Dharmaraj Dawane, an engineer with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, and claimed that his academic documents were forged, the police official said.

They demanded Rs 55 lakh from the engineer for not filing a police complaint against him.

Dawane, however, approached Goregaon police station and the case was transferred for investigation to Anti Extortion Cell of the crime branch.

It laid a trap in Teen Dongri area and apprehended the accused while allegedly accepting Rs 2 lakh in cash.

The accused were identified as Pratap Chokhandare (49), Abhayraj Patel (48), Shekhar Sapkal (33), Santosh Nair (45) and Rafique Mulani (39), the police official said, adding that further probe was on.