Puja Khedkar’s mother remanded in police custody till July 20 in land dispute case

Pune, Jul 18 (PTI) A court in Maharashtra’s Pune district on Thursday remanded Manorama Khedkar, mother of IAS probationer Puja Khedkar, in police custody till July 20 after she was arrested for allegedly threatening some persons with a gun over a land dispute.

Manorama was apprehended from a lodge in Mahad in Raigad district in the morning. She was hiding there, police said.

Manorama was then brought to the Paud police station in Pune district and placed under arrest.

She was produced before a local court which remanded her in police custody till July 20, said an official.

Police had launched a search for Manorama and her husband Dilip Khedkar after a video surfaced showing her allegedly threatening some persons with a gun over a land dispute at Dhadwali village in Pune’s Mulshi tehsil.

The Paud police in Pune rural have booked the Khedkar couple and five others under the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS) sections, including 323 (dishonest or fraudulent removal or concealment of property), and the Arms Act.

“Manorama Khedkar was apprehended from Mahad in Raigad district and she was brought to Paud where, after the completion of formalities, she was placed under arrest,” Superintendent of Police, Pune Rural, Pankaj Deshmukh, had said earlier.

Puja Khedkar is under scrutiny for her claims regarding disability and Other Backward Class (OBC) certificates in her Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) candidature, as well as her conduct during her tenure at the Pune collector’s office.

Amid the row, the government on Tuesday put on hold the ‘district training program’ of Puja Khedkar, who was earlier transferred to Washim as a supernumerary assistant collector from Pune, as she was summoned back to the Mussoorie-based Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration for “necessary action”.

The Pune Anti-Corruption Bureau unit has received a complaint seeking an open inquiry against Puja Khedkar’s father Dilip Khedkar, a retired government official, in connection with alleged disproportionate assets, a senior official said on Wednesday.

There is already an inquiry underway by the ACB’s Nashik division against him into the alleged disproportionate assets.

Hence, the Pune unit of the anti-graft agency has sought directions from the ACB headquarters to either incorporate the fresh complaint into the ongoing probe or whether to conduct a separate open inquiry, the official said.