PUNE: A magisterial court has rejected the bail pleas of retired army havildar and three others arrested on charge of duping 49 army job aspirants to the tune of Rs 1.80 crores who were promised jobs with the Territorial Army unit in Kolhapur.
The crime occurred between February last year and September this year.
The accused include the mastermind Pandurang Karale (38) from Tasgaon in Sangli district, retired havildar Rajesh Lohar (44) and Subhash Kulkarni (44) both from Belgavi in Karnataka and insurance agent Ankush Shinde (40) from Jaisinghpur at Kolhapur.
Joint judicial magistrate first class C N Ondare from Pune cantonment court in its order on November 1 rejected the bail pleas of the accused observing that they may influence the prosecution witnesses if they were enlarged on bail.
Assistant public prosecutor Jyoti Waghmare said, "We submitted before the court to reject the bail pleas of the accused because they were involved in a serious crime and feared that it would be difficult to secure their presence for trial if they were released on bail."
On October 13, the Kondhwa police had arrested Karale, who masterminded the alleged fraud. Karale’s custodial interrogation led the investigators to Lohar, a retired havildar with the Maratha Light Infantry (MLI), and Kulkarni (50) and Shinde (44).
